As first a host at restaurants, and then later as a waitress, I was rarely bored at work. There was a time that I worked a Sunday night shift at a restaurant in a business area, so it was pretty dead some nights...like me and a coworker played chess between helping our tables... but most of the time waitressing kept me busy.
Teaching too, was a very busy, keep me going kind of job. I liked that every 40 minutes to a hour I was doing something different with the kids, each day was different than the day before, and each year was different than the previous year because of the students. I also really enjoyed the power to decide shift the schedule if needed, or if the kids were really getting antsy, I could take them all outside for some spontaneous exercise before getting back to work. Teaching's pace really suited me.
If I'm not proactive, my current job can get boring. This job being, of course, mom to two kids. Not boring because of the kids, who I love, and are always surprising me, but just there are a lot of hours to pass during the day, and many of them I am simply an observer.
Besides the fact that on days that Grace goes nowhere and sees no one and does nothing but play with her toys at home, she tends to get bored too, and thus acts out, and I have more tantrums to deal with, adding to my frustration of being bored myself.
So, I have made it a point to fill days. An empty day is a bad day... so those are to be avoided at all costs.
For the last month or so, the day filling looks like my mother in law watching the kids for part of Mondays, my mom and the kids and I having lunch and playtime together on Tuesdays, Blake comes home Wednesdays, Thursday are usually some playgroup activity and Fridays we go to a Bible study that has free child care for Grace as a bonus (and she likes it too). On the days that it is only a lunch plan, not a play time plan, we also go to a place near our house called Pretend City.
I decided a few weeks ago that it was worth it for us to become members there, and it has already well paid itself off. For one day it is twelve dollars a person (Remington is free... I am not) or you pay 140 for the year.
Six visits, it is already worth it, and in the few weeks we have had it, we have already gone nine times.
In short, it is exactly what it says, a small city full of things she can pretend to do, like a farm, kitchen, grocery store etc.
Our typical Pretend City day starts with the play cars, which she samples many of, and then she wanders to an area of her choosing for the day. She plays till story time, and then we hear the story, do the craft, and then I let her meander to wherever she chooses till it is time to go for lunch. One of the best stories is one day as she was cooking in their pretend restaurant, she kept going back to her pot, opening it, saying "More spice," and then closing it again. It kept her occupied for almost half an hour!
There will be copious amounts of pictures of her doing pretend city activities below... since it is at least a once a week occurrence.There are also some cute pictures of Remington.
Starting in April, we will be adding even more to our days. She will be taking both a dance class with my mother in law once a week and a dance class with me once a week. We will also be doing a Waldorf playgroup (more on that in a later post), while keeping most of our standard activities above. Hopefully we will both be happier with the busier schedule, and Remington won't mind being carted around a bit more.
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