Good Enough Mom: Snow Day Solutions

Welcome to my new recurring theme: "Good Enough Mom". Trying to be the perfect mom - whatever that looks like to you - is a recipe for crazy. Or an addiction to prescriptions drugs. So I though I'd share some suggestions on being "good enough". If you'd like to share some parenting hacks of your own, email me at triplezmom at gmail dot com. 

I always say that if it has to be winter, I want it to snow. So, if all these storms are my fault, I apologize. But things look so much prettier this way. Plus, even though I'm no longer teaching, I still love a snow day. According to most of my social media, I'm one of the few stay/work at home parents who feels this way.

But how you can resist a world that looks like this?

So much better than that polar vortex crap we were having. Though, you know, summer would really be the best solution of all.

I'm pretty sure that my love for snow days remains, despite 3 (very loud) children and a very small house, because of a few things:

• Laissez-faire parenting. Anyone who knows me knows that I would make a terrible cruise director ("You're on a huge ship with pools, casinos, spas, movies, shows and alcohol and you can't find anything to do? What's wrong with you?). I believe it's my job to help my kids entertain themselves, not to entertain them. They're good at playing and they actually enjoy it. That helps a lot.
• Special projects. When the playing turns into fighting, it's time to let them do something that they don't usually get to do. We don't paint a lot because it always seems to end in disaster, but I'll let them do it on a snow day. Or we'll do a toothpick project. Or have a picnic lunch in the living room. Anything that is out of the ordinary should help. Now that my kids are older and so busy, many snow days they're just happy to be able to play and not have homework and dance and practice.
• Too much screen time. The trick to assuaging the guilt over letting them have too much screen time is to make them "earn it" somehow. Lots of reading, or writing stories, or creating or room cleaning can mean extra screen time. Especially if you work from home and actually have to hear yourself think at some point.
• Active time. This is when you can use the power of video games for good; let them play extra, but only if they do a very active game like Just Dance. If the weather is not horrifying, you can always send them out to make a snow man or something, but the thrill of snow may be wearing off by now. If your kids are too little to go out by themselves (and you hate the cold like I do) or be bribed by video games, then make them an obstacle course. Ironflower and Lovebug still talk about them wistfully and have even set one up for their little brother. I used to use their play tunnel, a bunch of stools and a bunch of couch cushions for them to crawl, climb and jump over in the living room. Family dance parties can also be good entertainment. 
• Booze. Make sure you stock up on your relaxant of choice before the storm. Then, when the piercing screams/arguments/whines start getting to you, you have something to look forward to. 

Crafts for Lazy Parents: Wood "Crafts"

Generally, I'm not a huge fan of craft kits. I think kids are more creative when left to their own devices, with a caddy full of glue, paper, markers and scissors. However, my kids think craft kits are cool. I don't know why, but I blame all the times Hot Guy has taken them to the craft store. 

It is also his fault they find fart jokes so amusing. 

Anyway, when he first started bring the wood craft kits home, I was annoyed. More mess! More clean up! Putting little tiny pieces together! It was like a nightmare. 

But he did most of it with the kids - well, putting the tiny pieces together and supervising the painting, anyway. Now that Ironflower and Lovebug are into elementary school, they don't even need help anymore. The best part is, Hot Guy found the kits in the back of Michael's for like a dollar. Now it's a ritual for each kid to get a kit when he takes them to Michael's. 

ex

A kit car. I recommend skipping the paint included with the kit and just using your own. 

But somehow, when I took them to Michael's, they didn't like all the dollar put together and paint kits. They wanted the scary, complicated kits that expect people to use hot glue guns talent. I broke out into hives, until I distracted them with the the wooden kits that came with their own markers.

Don't ask me why coloring wood with markers is more exciting than using coloring books, but it is. 

It keeps them busy longer, too. 

Now, I don't have pictures of them, unfortunately, but you don't have to buy a kit to entertain your kiddos this way. If your garage is filled with wood scraps, like my father-in-law's workshop is, your kiddos can use them to create their own wooden crafts. You can have them use wood glue to glue pieces together (if they're over 7 or so), or just let them paint some scraps. The big kids did something like that years ago when they visited their grandparents, if I recall correctly. 

Teaching Tuesday: Summer Notebook

You've seen the articles about how much knowledge your child will lose over the summer, haven't you? Maybe you've even gotten flyers from the local tutoring center, promising that your child can actually get smarter over the summer, if you just pay a lot of money and drag them to the center on a regular basis.

If your child is truly behind, as in reading below grade level or doing math below grade level, then by all means have him/her tutored this summer. Although I would ask local teachers if any of them tutor before I sent my kids to a center. But more on that another time.

Everyone else needs to take a breath.

Preventing the summer slack off does not take a lot of ton of time, money or effort. I promise.

1. You'll want to read to your kid every day. If your child is already a reader, this is the time to read them something a bit above their reading level, like the Chronicles of Narnia or A Wrinkle in Time . Use the occasion to build vocabulary (make sure they have a way to interrupt you politely to ask what a word means) and comprehension.

2. You'll want to do a little bit of math every day. With first and second graders, this can be as simple as addition and subtraction fact flashcards. Older kids can review multiplication and division facts or math vocabulary words. Another option is to incorporate math into your bedtime routine, with a book like Bedtime Math. 

The truth is, as long as your kid is doing something during the day besides staring at a television screen and a Wii controller, you can probably stop right there. Especially if they're going to camp or you're taking them to lots of enriching places. But if you insist on having them do more (which I do, it's how my kids earn Wii, Kindle and TV time during the summer), here are a few more ideas:

3. Make them read independently. Let them choose what - comic books, magazines (American Girl and National Geographic Kids are popular around here), movie tie-in books - as often as possible. If you have an extremely reluctant reader, make him/her earn screen time by reading independently. 

4. Create a summer notebook. You can, of course, just buy workbooks for your child's particular grade. But a notebook is more personalized for your child, probably more engaging and definitely cheaper. 

A composition notebook is fine. 

This is Hugmonkey's notebook from when we were stuck in Florida. 

Summer Notebook How-To:

1. Take a good look at the work your kid has done through the school year so you have an idea of what they can do independently.
2. Every Sunday, write directions on the top of 7, 14 or 21 pages (depending on whether you want the kiddo to do 1, 2 or 3 pages per day).
3. Ideas for directions*:

• Have them to write a certain number of sentences, paragraphs and/or pictures about experiences they've had during the week.
• Have them retell a story or chapter you read together the night before.
• Give them 5 to 10 math problems.
• Have them write sentences using and pictures of vocabulary words from the book you're reading together.
• Ask them to come up with 5 math word problems and then solve them.
• Have younger kids match uppercase with lowercase letters, numbers to amounts or shapes of different sizes.
• Have older kids read a newspaper or magazine article, then write down the 5 most important facts from it. 
• Have them come up with 5 things they are curious about and how they could learn about them.
• Encourage them to keep a record of books, comics, magazines and websites they've read during the week. 
• Have them write a letter to a book character or historical character. 
• Let them cut words out of magazines and then sort them into nouns, verbs and adjectives, or long vowels and short vowels, or words they recognize and words they don't. 
• Give them directions for drawing a particular picture (Draw a square. Draw a triangle on top of it. And so on. . .)
• Have them figure out how much coupons from the local paper would save you at the grocery store that week. 
• Have them list and/or draw pictures of their favorite TV shows, songs, books, movies, websites, friends, foods, outfits and places. You can extend it by having them explain why these are their favorites. 

4. Check the work as your kid finishes it or each night before bed. Praise lavishly, but don't be afraid to ask for more details or to help them fix mistakes. 

5. Stop worrying that your kid is falling behind. 

*I'll be doing more ideas for directions in a few weeks, so don't panic if you don't think this will be enough to get you through the summer.