It’s important for me to listen to readers and use any ideas they have since I’ve really got nothing. I mean, me and the kids are going to be chainsawing some more things this week. But other than that I can’t think of what to do with these kids of mine during an eight hour stretch. Well, there is the TV and that’s normally good for 7 hours during the day. You know I’m kidding I hope. Just under 2 hours never killed anyone.

Actually, that’s not really true. By allowing my kids to watch PBS shows they become exposed to Chucky Cheese. And, inevitably some weak parents give in and take their kids there for a birthday party that we get invited to. You, the reader might say, “Hey, lighten up. It’s just some good clean fun for kids.” I can’t lighten up about Chucky Cheese. Nobody really likes being there. It’s a really bad restaurant chain that can’t go out of business as long as they keep showing the face of Chucky to kids and as long as grown ups can’t say no to their first-born. My theory is that it’s only the oldest kids that rope parents in. After that, even the weakest parents won’t succumb to the “…but why did big sister get to go there?” So how did two hours of TV kill anyone, you might impatiently ask again? I only wished I was dead when we were there. Every time the robotic animal band struck up I tried to get another plastic cup of wine. I’ve only been to one Chucky Cheese and it served wine (barely). Apparently, some don’t. But, it’s hard to drink them fast enough when each pour has to be overseen by apparently the only adult employed there. It’s no Disney World

But, as usual, I digress. A reader suggested that I have the kids fill the swimming pool and go swimming, then empty the swimming pool with small pans and deliver the water to the plants around outside. This is something I thought made solid sense. It gets high ratings on the Interaction scale (once again, ideas receive higher points for less interacting with the kids). It also did well on the taking up time (or, as I like to call it TUT) scale. So, let’s review: High points on Interaction Scale and high points on TUT scale. These two don’t often dovetail so nicely. It’s like a fine cheap inexpensive wine with a high alcohol content. You make the graph.

Hoyt filled up the pool with the help of his 8 year old sister who is now winding down from a busy year of second grade. They had a nice time in the pool. The 1 year old played around the edge of the pool which meant a bit of on duty time for me (water+pool+baby = bad), but still very easy – allowing me to do all the things irresponsible parents do: check email, text, talk on the phone and read (sorry, not a book, more tech information about cloud computing).

As I was finishing my afternoon of kids transferring water like Pappilion moving rocks I decided to share this idea with fellow readers. As I was writing the account down for the world (probably just you), I got another email in from the reader with the good pool idea. She had another idea. She wanted to know if I had ever taken the kids to Chucky Cheese. She must have been one of those idiot savant mothers. How could a person with an obvious off the charts intelligence level that would come up with such a beautiful way to avoid interacting with children, also come to the conclusion that Chucky Cheese was a good idea. Then I realized, Chucky Cheese is the ultimate way to not interact with your children. Brilliant. She’s beyond me. She’s in a whole different class. I should be reading about all her tips. But, I just don’t think I have it in me to not want to be with my kids so badly that I will take the time to take them to Chucky Cheese. I guess I find out something new about myself every day.

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