Rainy Morning

What to do with a five year old and a seven year old when it's raining heavily outside and the adults all want to do their own thing? Like I needed to do some grocery shopping, Tom wanted to read the paper, and their mom got up early to watch a World Cup match and then went back to bed until the next match started. And I wanted to have some sit down time and watch the Brazil/North Korea match too. Well, my brilliant idea worked out just fine. With Tom's help I engineered a fort under the kitchen table. The Kitchen Aide mixer was the heaviest thing handy to anchor all of the blankets. As soon as the fort was up, the kids began to designate "rooms" and needed a computer for their computer room. Modern forts are not what they used to be in the olden days. So I set up my Acer on a chair, with some warning about being careful, left Grandpa in charge, and went to the store. I took my time. When I returned the kids were still engaged in the "computer room" on the PBS Kids site. I suggested they turn it off and move into another room. Before I knew it they were dragging most of their bedding from their beds upstairs down to the kitchen to furnish their "bedroom". I did put a limit on how much they needed when the comforters were coming down the stairs. We adults all got to do what we wanted and the kids played until we made them stop at lunch time. It's not often you can keep everyone happy with such an simple and no cost solution. It cleared off after nap time and we put in some time in the play house, and played Sorry twice. Irene came in from the play house as Isaac and I were starting the second game. She wanted to play but didn't know how so I said I'd talk her through it. But she couldn't cheat. She usually tries to. Much to Isaac's dismay, she won, and carried on about what an easy game it was! On another note, for all of you nature lovers, this Cooper's hawk flew into my window Sunday as I was sitting right there in my recliner. It was quite a thump. I got up to see the hawk shake itself off and fly into a nearby tree to get its wits back before flying off. It was going after birds at the bird feeders right there, of course. Maybe it'll try other picking after that encounter.