Moving things around

Our school district calls so early to announce a snow day. Today at 5 a.m after receiving the call, I found three boys staring at me as I pretended to sleep. Snow day mania began in my house. Despite their pleas to go out at 7 a.m., I held my ground and told them that we had to wait until the strong, cold winds settled down. You can imagine the disappointed looks on their faces. I hoped that we would have better weather for snow play in the afternoon. Now we had a whole morning ahead of us. I needed to think of some activity to pass the time before the inevitable battles began. I decided to recruit them to my moving team.

Every once in a while, I will sit in one of the rooms in my house and rearrange things in my head. I don't often get the chance to move things around to change a room's look. This morning seemed like the right time to shake things up in my house a bit. Luckily, my kids also like when I play around with a room's layout. It turned out to be a great exercise in cooperation, creativity, teamwork and brainstorming for the kids. We also had a lot of fun in the process. Each kid felt they had an important role in the new room design. The morning hours flew by, and we found a new way to spend family time together. It's also funny how an old chair can become so popular with the kids once it is in a new spot. They all were competing for a chance to use it as their new TV chair.

It still doesn't look too kid friendly outside for playing in the snow. Luckily, the kids are not glued to the window and watching the clock as much. Maybe I'll put them to work organizing old pictures this afternoon. Won't my husband be surprised when he sees what we've been up to today?