When Your Kids are Bored in Montrose

The little rodent saw his shadow again. That means there will be six more weeks of winter. Though anyone who has a calendar knows that in six more weeks, it will be spring.

One of the things I’ve found when winter lingers on, is that on weekends, I’m always hearing “Mom, I’m bored. Can we do something fun?” My response seems to always be “What do you have in mind?” Of course, then I get the furry eyebrow look from my kids.

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It’s hard enough sometimes, to keep myself from being bored, let alone my kids. I have a word search book that had one puzzle titled “Fun winter activities”. Shoveling snow was listed as one of those activities. Perhaps I should tell my bored child that she could have fun doing that. I doubt that would be a fun activity in her eyes.

I long for the time when I could read to my girls. I read to them almost every night when they were little. I am glad, however, that they like to read on their own now. My youngest just read “The Outsiders” in her class. We watched the movie over the weekend, and she liked the book much better than the movie.

We have an old Nintendo 64 game that we recently brought out. My husband and I used to play it a lot, and now we’ve got the girls playing Mario Kart with us. Game graphics have improved significantly since we first got it.

We’ve managed to make some new recipes too. My mom used to collect cookbooks and figured I needed to collect them too. Sometimes we just get out a random cookbook and try something new. I’ve read that if you have your kids help in the kitchen, they’re more willing to try a new dish.

Walking the dog around the neighborhood gets the girls, and the dog, some exercise. If we show the dog his leash, he’s ready to go on a walk.

My girls both like to paint. I have a huge roll of butcher paper, and a box full of paints and paintbrushes. Too bad when we were repainting a bathroom recently, our girls didn’t really want to help. Though, my husband was very glad they didn’t.

Making slime is another good activity. I can’t tell you how many different recipes we’ve tried through the years, but it feels like it’s in the hundreds. Right now, we have a batch of red clay slime, and a batch of blue and silver glitter slime sitting on a tray in the kitchen.

Another thing I would like to try is making fondue with my kids. We used to ask our parents if we could make it. My mom’s response was always “someday.” Fondue is a fun experience, but I’ve been leery about having scorching hot oil on the table around people who tend to spill things. I have two fondue sets, so maybe it’s time we try. If it’s fun, then maybe the next few weeks won’t be so boring.