There's just one little problem...

Even though it is only day two of my one-child-at-home freedom, a big challenge surfaced yesterday. My children, except for John, were so tired and hungry when I picked them up from school I didn't know what to do. They weren't happy with the goldfish or cheese and crackers I suggested. They wanted sandwiches and ramen noodles and pizza. "This is not like second breakfast only with lunch" I said, "this is a snack. I'm going straight from making your snack to making your dinner."

Then they were all like, "I'm soooooo sleepy. I can't keep my eyes open." That's when I started tickling them and yelling out at random times to scare them awake. I knew that if they so much as closed their eyes, it would be over. They would sleep and sleep and sleep and then they would wake up just in time for bedtime and they would be hungry AGAIN and not sleepy. It's a horrible, vicious cycle. I know this from experience.

So today, on the way home from school, I had an idea. [And no, my idea was not to put on some makeup and wash my hair!]

When your kids want to lay around like a useless cat, and you don't have the luxury of a pool for your kids to burn off their energy in...

simply dump all the toys out of all your buckets, bins and boxes, take em outside and fill em up with water. Yes, water. It's that simple!

This may seem like kind of a back woods thing to do, but we don't really have any neighbors so I don't really care how it looks. Being in the cold water sort of hit my kid's reset button and I think it bought me a couple of hours until they eat dinner and get ready for bed.

April chose to swim in her birthday suit. Surprise!


Autumn likes to float, sort of.


I'm not sure but I think that was a cannonball. Nice splash!


Notice how Autumn is holding her breath. You don't want to swallow a bunch of water. That would be the worst.


A little snorkeling action. I wonder what she saw down there?


Before I knew it, and before I really got anything done, they were clamoring for snacks again.


No matter, they're awake, about to eat a snack and when 8:30 comes, they'll be ready to go to sleep and they won't be monsters in the morning when I go to wake them up!