When the boys were very little I recall a time when we would spend hours at the park. Literal hours. We would also do park crawls, which is the same as a pub crawl in the sense that we went to all the parks in town, except it was for the kids, and no vodka was involved. The time we were at the park it was often just me and the boys, which was great but on hard days it wasn’t. Parenthood I swear can be the loneliest time.
Now we have some great parks in my local area and they are mostly underutilised; which is perhaps a sign of the times or perhaps because sometimes spending hours at the park as a parent solo can be like watching paint dry; especially after the fifth visit in as many days. So a quick think on five things you can do with the kids that’s not the park when your kids realise that a visit to Woolworths is not a real kids activity.
Board games.
Admittingly this is for the older kids rather than the little ones but we LOVE board games and card games. For us right now UNO is life. We play UNO during dinner or straight after. There is no wrong time for UNO in our house. We also love anything with trivia -ahem mum does- while dad is a Monopoly haggler. I like quick games. Some we have played this month are Five Second Rule and Beat the Parents. We also just brought junior Monopoly.
A bush walk.
Depending on the kid’s age will depend on your distance and difficulty. Personally, we have used the tracks around our local area as outings for years. The boys get caught up in the wildlife. The scurrying of insects, animals and on occasion people. Our favourite track around a lake sits back from the main road, where trucks and cars would roar past but if you listened closely when the boys where little you could swear you could hear dinosaurs roaring ;). Now that they are older and harder to trick its a race to see who can finish the five kilometres, around the lake, the quickest.
Photo scavenger hunts.
The boys love this one and I will often print something off Pinterest when they need to get out and especially when Nana visits. They can go and get some purposely taken images. There are some great lists out there for all ages.
Backyard games.
In summer this is also our thing. When the heat of the day has gone and it’s just on dusk we will come together in the back yard and play Fly, Mr Wolf and Red red rover. When the boys were little we would play sack and egg and spoon. Those evenings say summer holidays hands down to me.
Ball games.
We are really lucky in that we have a massive driveway in which we can play handball, cricket and basketball. I must admit however that at some point all of these turns into brandy and someone gets hurt. It’s at this point I scream I’m done and storm off inside.
Big love,
Deb
