Stir Crazy Rainy Daze
You’ve never truly known the meaning of the expression “stir crazy” until you’ve stayed at home with your kids on a rainy day. It would be one thing if I could plop them down in front of the TV with popcorn and let them watch Sesame Street until their brains turned into Alphabet Soup, but there is just something about being trapped indoors that brings out their inner hamsters on a wheel. Of course my children own rain gear and we could go out and splash in puddles or do other indoor activities, and it’s not so much the amount of effort it takes to suit them up and strip them down, but the fact that I’d have to change out of my PJ's, which is where in the plan that I must immediately throw down my all-powerful mommy veto.
To say that my house gets messy on these days is like saying a hurricane has mild wind and light rain. If someone were to pop over unexpectedly, I would be forced to turn off the lights and hide with my children in the pantry, since we passed suitable for guests with our Play-Doh and pasta food fight. Although this is probably unwise because I can see someone looking through our window and believing that we were the victims of a looting or perhaps the before picture for a show on HGTV and then immediately contacting the necessary authorities. However if this lands us on some sort of home makeover show where they send my family to Disneyland for a week, our last name is spelled with 3 r's, not 2.
These are the days where New Girl’s “True American” or Friends’ “Fireball” were invented-- except you aren’t still living in a loft with 4 other roommates and you have actual responsibilities, so none of your games can include alcohol or fire. Instead our wholesome family activities are a very literal translation of “climbing the walls” and me raiding various closets for novel items that my kids have yet to put in their mouths or hit each other with. The rain is expected to continue through the weekend, so things are about to get a whole lot more interesting over here. If you are reading this please send more Play-Doh and lots of coffee-- we might only be one rainy day away from matching mother and daughters' footie pajamas.
