Meaningless Tasks: A Parent's Best Friend

My boys sometimes resemble caged animals, except without the cage. My husband and I have discovered a great way to deal with their seemingly boundless energy, and I thought I would share it since possibly someone else with crazy kids might be reading this and looking for advice. So our advice is...give your children long, meaningless tasks to do. It really works!

For instance, the other day, my husband and I were trying to talk and Henry kept interrupting. So we told him to run up and down the stairs 15 times because that would just be SO COOOL! And he did it. And loved it. And we got to finish our conversation with each other. Then today, I was trying to get ready to leave the house with the boys and they were being their usual hyper little selves, so I gave them each 20 pennies to put in their piggy banks. And they did it. And they loved it. And I got the car loaded up in no time flat.

We especially like tasks that involve going upstairs (their piggy banks are upstairs in their bedroom) because it wears them out more, it takes them longer, and it gets them far enough away that we can actually not hear them for all of two minutes. Our other favorites involve having them make a surpise for Mommy and Daddy. We say, "Hey go make a really cool block tower, and don't let us see it until it is really huge!" When my husband is really desperate, he will send them on an impossible mission, like trying to find some toy that he knows we don't have. Admittedly, this seems a tad cruel, but it does keep them busy for a really long time.

On an unrelated note, we just finished day 3 of the boys' antibiotics. Seven more long days to go. Henry keeps complaining about the taste, so I put a little bit on my finger and tried it, and you know what? He is right. It is pretty disgusting stuff, unless you happen to like the taste of an orange-banana smoothie with three cups of sugar in it. Which apparently Quinn does, since he sucks it down and is disappointed that there are no second helpings allowed. Then again, Quinn is a sugar junkie, plus I have seen him eat sand, for pete's sake, so it is no surprise that he would like the syrupy, melted push-pop taste of the antibiotics. And speaking of antibiotics, when the doctor prescribed them, I asked if it was really necessary to take them, what with all of the talk about how too many antibiotics are being given to children. She said the boys' ear infections were pretty bad, that the infection MIGHT go away on its own, but that her doctor friend treated a child who had an untreated ear infection that "ate through her ear" and turned into menangitis. So I took my little prescriptions and RAN to the nearest drug store!

Now I am feeling really crummy, too, a little worse each day, so I bet I will end up on antibiotics as well. I wonder what flavor MINE will be. Strawberry-Pineapple Slushy? Cherry Delight? Mango-Lime Sorbet? All I know is that I had better hide it from Quinn.