How to Idly Amuse Your Kids This Half Term

If like me, it feels like the last holiday was only five minutes ago, and you still haven’t reclaimed your sanity or made enough money to support another week off, don’t fret, I’ve got you.

Stupidly, we aren’t going away for half term, something to do with The Hub unable to get the week off work, even though I’ve been drumming the dates into him since the start of term.

Funnily enough, he “forgot” to book half term off. If I was a more suspicious person, I’d think that he forgot on purpose, so he doesn’t have to enjoy the fun that is a full week off with BOTH of his Spratts. I keep wishfully thinking about “forgetting” half term and buggering off somewhere for the week, but as I work from home, I can’t think of a good enough excuse that would get me out of it!

There’re a number of things I CAN’T wait to experience again this week, one of them is the over zealous screaming match over who had their eyes on the Barbie that’s been left in the bathroom for two weeks untouched, the other is the unending requests for food they want but then won’t eat.

So in preparation for all this “fun”, here are some alternative ideas for activities to whittle away the holiday in no time. Because, come on, while day trips are all well and good, sometimes just knocking around at home wearing your ten-year-old purple dressing gown and bean covered PJs is all you or your sad looking bank balance want to do.

Hide and Seek

This old classic will have your kids hiding from you for hours on end, but remember to set the ground rules early. You ALWAYS count and the room that you’re counting in is strictly forbidden as a hiding place.

Send them off to hide under the pretext of ‘looking’ for them, then grab your phone and relax.

Occasionally shout “I’m still looking” to keep them in their hiding places, while you raid the cupboards for cake you can’t bear to share and coffee you can still drink warm. Bliss. You may have to bang around a bit to keep your cover going. Don’t over do it, somehow two and three-year-olds are fucking smart, and know when you’re pissing around.

Small children are particularly shit at hiding, so at no point when you’re prowling the kitchen for more supplies should you let them trick you into spotting them, or revealing you’ve heard them giggling. (Of course, this only works if your two-year-old doesn’t jump out at you every two seconds to shout “boo” then hide in the exact same place.)

When they finally appear half an hour later, enthusiastically congratulate them on their win (that’s very important, one simple lie saves an hour of tantrums over losing) and remind them just how bad you are at the game and that you need more practice to get better. Then repeat.

Wrestling

Let’s be honest, they’re going to go for each other anyway, so you’d may as well permit it and make it fun.

Get them to start with pillows. A bit like the Gladiators show, they’ll twat themselves round the head a few times until they chuck the cushions and go for full on tackles.

Instead of attempting to break up World War Three, go with it.

Set a timer on your phone, sit on your ass with your limbs as far away as possible and shout “go.” When the timer does off, they have to stop, move away, then repeat as many times as you can bear the noise/whining/blood.

Just for shits and giggles, why not ask a friend to bring her Spratts round too. Everything is better doubled right?

Top Tip- Don’t invite anyone with names like Tabitha or Gerald. It just ain’t worth it.

House Race

This one is so easy I’d be surprised if you aren’t doing this already.Lay in bed and play a good old game of ‘Red Light, Green Light.’ You only need minimal attention and they run themselves ragged before you even get up. Perfect for when all you can be bothered to do is sleep.

Housework

This is truly a win win for everyone involved, well, as long as you don’t mind socks not being paired and your knickers being paraded around the front room on your Spratts head of course.

Turn it into a competition. I mean, what two and three-year-old (and four, five, six or seven-year-old) doesn’t like to race?

Of course, if you’re expecting anything at all to be done RIGHT, then…well…errrr….sorry.

The winner (so both of them obviously) gets something cool, like more IPad or TV time. Score!

Dance-a-thon

Get the radio or You tube up and have a Spratt dance party in the living room. To make it extra ‘cool’, shut the curtains to make it proper, kids like that.

You sit on the sofa as the ‘music director’ (win) and have them dance for you.

If they get bored (go figure), get them to dress up in whatever they can find, and parade round the living room. You may be picking your clothes up from different rooms for a week, and find your tights are now twice as long thanks to them being used a gloves, but hey, it passes half an hour.

Puppy Play

Now this is one of my favourites.

Perfect for if you want to lounge out in bed, on the sofa or if you just can’t be arsed to move.

Sit somewhere comfy and throw a ball. Get your kids to run after it and bring the ball back to you. If you really want to go the full hog, then get them to bring the ball back in their teeth or entertain you with some form of barking trick thing.

Sofa Surfing

Slide underneath the cushions and have the kids ‘surf’ on top of you (one at a time if possible.)

It’s a good idea to scoot away risky objects they could wipe themselves out on, like The Hub’s brand new TV for instance.

Best of all, it’s dark under the cushions and you can pretend the pressure of the kids’ weight and their pointy skeleton feet are really just the fine movement of a well trained masseuse. You can dream, right?

And if all else fails….

Call the grandparents and hide.