Milk and Cookies
with Linda and Kristen
Milk and Cookies is a savory web venue for cool products, useful tips, and idea-sharing, prepared especially for busy moms like you. From the must-haves to avoid-at-all-costs, we're dishing out tools for a delicious life balance.
Visit Linda's fitness site at Bodies in Motivation and check out Kristen's blog at Swistle.blogspot.com
Oh, do you have a feverish, bored, restless kid, too? We should form a club! Here are some ideas for keeping sick kids occupied, at home or in the hospital:
1. Knitting spool. It’s fun when something from my childhood is still around in basically the same incarnation. This is one of those things that makes a long knit rope, and my mom gave me one when I was a feverish, bored, restless child back about…well, no need to do the math. I bought William a $3 Boye version at a craft store (I think Walmart has them, too), plus…
2. Yarn. I bought a $2.50 skein of Red Heart multicolored yarn, which I found at Walmart. The multicolored yarn results in a STRIPED rope, which is significantly cooler than the Hippie Natural Unbleached Yarn rope I made as an ill child in the 1970s. I like #950, which makes a rainbow. Who’s a hippie NOW?
3. Colored pencils. Less messy than markers, less everyday than crayons, and easy to find at Target or Walmart or wherever you’ve run to get apple juice and a new vaporizer and more ibuprofen and TEN MINUTES AWAY FROM THE HOUSE OF SICKNESS and so forth. Also pick up a…
4. Drawing pad. Regular paper is fine too (especially with a clipboard) but a drawing pad makes it more sickbed-special and gives a nice solid writing surface for balancing on the lap.
5. Fun books. William hasn’t been feeling well enough to read his regular books, but he did look at Amelia’s Notebook, a hybrid of book, scrap book, and comic book.
6. Um, personal DVD player. This is what magazines lightheartedly refer to as a “splurge” and the rest of us refer to as an “OMG YOU HAD BETTER BE KIDDING ME.” But I got one on a total steal ($20 on clearance “as is” but we’ve never found a thing wrong with it) and I can fully recommend it. Our kids have dropped it again and again (including from the TOP BUNK) and it is still working fine. It’s easy to use, and it lets a kid watch DVDs in bed at a low volume in another room without Mother feeling she will lose her ever-loving mind if she hears one more episode of SpongeBob.
7. Travel stuff. A lot of things made for traveling are perfect for sick beds and hospitals and couch nests: they’re usually compact, and with systems for keeping all the pieces in place. Auto Bingo, no, but Desk to Go, yes. License Plate Game, no, but Travel Lite Brite, yes. Color Wonder Travel Tote, yes. Magnetic Travel Tangoes, yes. Find It, yes.
8. Puzzle books. William isn’t up to doing something like a crossword puzzle, but a dot-to-dot book is absorbing without being overly taxing.
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Make at home (cheaper) play dough for bigger (more time away from me) creations. Puzzles. Google for kid’s games on the internet. Mid-day baths with lots of toys can take an hour!
How ’bout a book that later got turned into a movie - two birgs with one stone. Or maybe a book that got turned into many movies, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? At least two full days there, reading and then two movies to watch!
Also, my mother would never let me play outside when I was sick. I am not doing that! If my kid’s well enough to ask me to play outside, I’m going to let them and be glad about it.
I think it’s unlikely, but are your kids old enough for Mad Libs yet? Perhaps it could be marketed to them as a “too cool for grownups” kind of this so that you’re not forced to pick words. I always had fun playing this with younger kids because they picked better, funnier words. Like booger.
TheGoriWife | November 5th, 2009 at 5:16 pm