{"id":9164,"date":"2022-08-03T12:47:31","date_gmt":"2022-08-03T16:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/?p=9164"},"modified":"2023-09-28T10:13:30","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T14:13:30","slug":"funmaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/03\/funmaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Funmaker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I was about 8, my brother (10) made up a fantasy game. I can\u2019t remember all the details, but he blindfolded me and my same-aged cousin and led us through a story. It involved walking through an alligator-infested swamp (he snapped at our ankles with kitchen tongs), sailing on a tempestuous sea (he tossed us around in the hammock), and sitting under a magical tree (he climbed up in the branches and rained candy down on us). He did this for absolutely no reason except that, constitutionally, he\u2019s a funmaker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One hot day years ago, finding himself without a baby pool, he hauled his canoe out from under the porch and filled it up with the hose so my babies could cool off. On a more recent scorcher, he dragged 40 feet of plastic out of his shed to an incline in his yard, squirted it with Dawn, and set the sprinkler to a narrow parameter. His kids and mine spent an hour slip-n-sliding at Uncle Bruce\u2019s water park. For his kids\u2019 whole lives, our annual trip to New England has involved an elaborate quest involving ciphers, celestial navigation, and treasure\u2013some years it\u2019s literally buried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s a funmaker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I, alas, am not. My idea of fun is sitting on my porch talking to grownups. My children, shockingly, do not find my favorite activity fun. And one of them is vocal about how not-fun his life is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat should I doooooooo?\u201d Patrick says, eighty times a day, and then sniffs at my suggestions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGo build something with your LEGOs,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. What else?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMake a train track.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOK, if you don\u2019t like your toys, let\u2019s donate them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI like<\/em> them. I just don\u2019t want to play with them right now<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the school year, I can survive the whining by patching together trips to the children\u2019s museum, games of Uno, play dates, and screen time, but after our big trip to Massachusetts in June, I was facing a July of nonstop togetherness. (I recognize the enormous privilege of having a month off with my children… But also <shiver>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I did what parents of my vintage do\u2013I asked my local parent Facebook group for help. Give me ideas, I said. Free or low cost. Little to no prep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they came through! Whole lists of activities, some 5-minute ones, others day-long. At least one person mentioned Pinterest, which I finally joined (what can I say\u2013I\u2019m not an early adopter) and which delivered hundreds of other ideas. The most important comment came from a mom who filled a jar with slips of paper with Things to Do. Most of the Things were fun, but some were chores! A wheel of fortune!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hoped this was my answer so I scribbled about 100 Things down, a quarter of them chores. I knew, in order to make this work, I had to make the chores tiny, so instead of \u201cclean the bathroom,\u201d I wrote \u201cwipe the bathroom mirror,\u201d \u201cwipe the bathroom sink,\u201d \u201cwipe the toilet,\u201d \u201cscrub the toilet,\u201d and \u201cclean the tub\u201d on separate slips. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other stuff ranged from get-your-wiggles-out (\u201cride your bike to the parking lot and back\u201d) to artistic (\u201ccollect leaves and make prints or rubbings\u201d) to sure wins (\u201c30 minutes of extra screen time\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What an unqualified coup. Here was Day 1:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I figured Patrick would complain about the chores, regardless of how minuscule, but he didn\u2019t! In fact, he said, \u201cEven the chores are fun because I get to pull from the jar.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

!!!!!!!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next days were a whirl of tiny paper rectangles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some items went back in the jar the next day, some the next week, and some were one-time deals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Arlo got in on many of them, like drawing a Pac-Man board on the driveway:
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Any guesses on the slip that prompted this face?:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

(It was \u201cgo to Pelican\u2019s SnoBalls.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I did it! I made fun! After a couple weeks, the novelty wore off, but Patrick will still pull from the jar every once in a while. And I made it through July without losing my marbles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Yesterday was the first teacher workday of the new school year. I think one of these years, there will be a shift, but my kids are still little enough that work<\/em> is a break<\/em>. During the all-school meeting, the admin team passed around the mic and told us to say one word to describe how we were feeling. I said \u2018excited\u2019 because I didn\u2019t want to explain why I was \u2018relieved.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was about 8, my brother (10) made up a fantasy game. I can\u2019t remember all the details, but he blindfolded me and my same-aged cousin and led us through a story. It involved walking through an alligator-infested swamp (he snapped at our ankles with kitchen tongs), sailing on a tempestuous sea (he tossed … Continue reading Funmaker<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fambly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9165,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9164\/revisions\/9165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}