Fun Mommy

Not.

My sister called me with free passes to a wildly fun children's museum in our city. But I really had to think about it. I mean, I had planned to spend the day doing laundry and getting the pantry organized (that's just how fun I am).

Then again, how fun would it be to let the kids play hard all day and chase them through the pool noodle forest?

Then again, I would have to give up nap time, and I dearly love nap time.

Hmm... Children's museum?





Or laundry?



Fun mommies do not have trouble with this type of decision.

But I do.

Oh, sometimes I spontaneously do fun things with my kids. But mostly I don't, and the times I do often turn disastrous.

Like the other morning, when Grace decided to "sew" me a shirt and Caleb started asking me to please please teach him to sew.

If the fun-hater in me wasn't going to say no, then the voice of common sense should have, but for some reason I said yes. I pulled out the preschool lacing cards for Joshua and sewing supplies to help Caleb get started.

He wasn't at all interested in the basics, though. He wanted to make a quilt in ten minutes or less. (At this point I should insert that I have very little knowledge of sewing and even less enjoyment of it.)

And Joshua was no longer interested in lacing cards. He was interested in straight pins, which he managed to dump all over the floor. His interest then moved on to the spools of thread which he took off with. This upset Caleb, who decided to run after him, tackle him, and wrestle the thread away, all while I was frantically trying to find every little pin on the floor before someone's foot was run through.

How come it never happens like that in Little House on the Prairie books? We have been reading through the Little House series in the afternoons when our power company makes it really expensive to turn on the air conditioner and it's too hot to move.

We are currently reading The Long Winter.

Yes, the irony is rich. We sit in the thick heat of the afternoon reading wonderfully descriptive language about the icy cold crawling up Laura's ankles.

Anyway, in those books, Caroline Ingalls and her children always spend peaceful mornings sewing together while the blizzard howls outside.

And the two-year-old is always "kept entertained" on Mary's lap for long periods of time.



That's the part where I always have to question how true those books really are.