I was all set to write a post on 10 Things To Keep Kids Busy While Packing To Move. I had the 10 ideas thought up, all items bought for crafting and such, and I even had the minis start on them....except the ideas failed. I failed miserably. So instead of helpful ideas, I'm publicly waving my white flag (and why is it a white flag? Why can't it be a pink a flag? I like the color pink. I'm told it has to be white though) in defeat.
The packing stage of the moving process is kicking this mom's ass. Mostly because it's hard on the minis, therefore it's hard on me. We've actually be doing a really good job of packing. We've thrown out soooo much junk, donated even more, and boxes that have been packed are labeled with exactly what's inside and which room of the house they are to be set in come moving day. However, the minis. Oh the minis. Packing their things up has been rough on them. Despite us reassuring them that they'll be seeing their items in a matter of days, I hear the words "don't pack that up yet!" Now we're not talking about their well loved and used items. We're talking about a game that has been under a bed for the last year and hasn't been played with is suddenly THE most important thing to them. For every box I pack, another box seems to be unpacked.
I'm by no means an organizational freak, however I do have things set up in their rooms that makes things easy for moving. I can't tell you how much those things have been mixed around, separated, or gotten into the wrong room, even after I've told them not to mess with said stuff. It's been REALLY frustrating and makes double the amount of work for us.
After nearly losing it with the three minis last week, I broke out the first of the 10 Things: noodle necklaces. I set out the string, uncooked large rigatoni noodles, and Sharpie markers for them to color the noodles when they were done. Here's how this what I thought would be a fool proof activity went.
Open the box of noodles. "Can we eat some?" Set out the string. "Can you make this string smaller I want a bracelet instead?" Set out the Sharpie markers. "Actually, I just want to color and eat the pasta. I don't want to make a neckla.....wait! What are you putting in that box??!!?" Failure. Total failure. My second activity (which is always a favorite just for the record): stickers. The stickers were promptly places on nearby boxes, making it impossible to read what was in the boxes. Then they followed me room to room asking me about packing as they placed stickers on their shirts. I wasn't amused.
Looking at the bright side of this, I wasn't able to fully devote myself to packing while they did the activity because not only did I have to monitor and take pictures of what they were doing (requirement of the blog post). So now I'm fully engaged with the boxes waiting to be filled while my three terrorize the rest of the house. Sometimes I get overly confident in my abilities, as evident by my starting of a post I clearly had no idea about. Just because I can engage kids five days a week, doesn't mean I can claim success on the weekends apparently (especially when packing is involved). Talk about a harsh reality check.
