I'm bored - not for long around me!

“Mom, I’m bored!”  You’ve probably heard those words more times than you can count.  I know I have as a mother.  You look around at the mess and wonder how on earth they can be bored when there is so much to do.  For me I don’t have 1 minute of boredom so it’s difficult to understand.

As a child my Mom, if I showed even a hint of boredom would get me busy.  I don’t remember saying “I’m bored” as a child, if I did I was probably mocking the words of my friends.  At the very least trying to fit in with them.  I didn’t do this very often, but I’m not perfect so I am sure I said it at least once or twice in my life.

Mom would grab a bucket and wash cloth and find something for me to wash, if she thought I might be getting slightly bored.  Since I had chores like dusting, vacuuming and dishes already, she didn’t add those to the list.   

She always got me involved with what she was doing.  If she was crocheting, she wanted me near so I could watch.  Going so far as to get me some yarn and a hook so she could teach while she was working.

Cooking was another area that I was involved, she’d call me in the kitchen to do something for her, like peel potatoes or chop onions.  Even if it was to just stand there stirring while she did something else.  I was kept busy.

Once she even showed me how to twiddle my thumbs.  She said “If you ever get so bored you don’t know what to do, twiddle your thumbs”.  I tried this for a while, I didn’t much care for it, you can only watch your thumbs go round and round for so long before they bump into each other. 

When I became a mother I realized there was nothing boring in my life.  Something is always needing to be done.  Walls need washing, door jams need dusting, windows need cleaning.  It’s always something and there is never enough time in the day to get it done. 

I look at my children who have every advantage that was not available to me as a child and they still say “I’m bored”.   I just don’t get it.  There is TV with 120 channels, yet there is nothing on to watch.  There are 300 movies/DVD’s available yet nothing is interesting.  We have a computer (well since I’m always on it, that’s not fair) I bought them a Wii console and several games to play, yet that isn’t interesting. 

For those of you who suffer from this boredom, put down those game consoles, shut off the TV, put down that Ipod (or whatever music thingy you have) tuck away those cell phones, walk away from the computer and get your butts over here!  I have LOTS to do!

We could wash windows so we can see outside, I went so far as to buy a squeegee, that might be fun.  I will let you play with the dogs and the vacuum now that is a blast, Curtis likes to bark at it and chase it around.  The dishes in the kitchen will dance in the water if just given a chance!  If the laundry was washed we could play dress up, so we‘ll get that done.  Shaking the sheets and blankets are fun for the dogs, they like to help make the beds. 

There are so many things to do around the house, who could ever possibly be bored?  I have about 1000 books to read of just about every genre.  The paper and pens I have could be used to write a novel.  If the rims of crystal glasses were to be wet with a touch of water beautiful music could be made.

There is just about every ingredient within my cupboards to make several gourmet meals, so there is no need to go to the store to get that can of Ravioli, or frozen pizza.  The refrigerator needs cleaning, we could dump out leftovers, that might be fun!  I even have a dishwasher, now it’s not bolted in properly so loading it can be a challenge, but that in itself can be fun and time consuming! 

The bathrooms, now those are fun to clean, because when it is done you can actually see something has been accomplished!  Scrubbing the toilet, how much fun it that?  Making all those bubbles, and swirling them around now that is entertainment!  I even buy those fancy cans of ‘scrubbing bubbles’ with the tag line “It does all the work so you don’t have to!”  You can spray the can to watch all those little scrubby hats come out and play on the walls of the shower.

We have games and cards of all sorts that sit on the shelves that are suffering from severe boredom because no one will play with them.  They must feel like Woody in ’Toy Story 3.  All sad and lonely covered in dust. 

We live on a dirt road so the dust is thick.  I have plenty of rags we could have a dust war!  Now that would be fun.  Running the rags over the dust covered surfaces, then putting it all in a pile to see who can gather the most.  I could give prizes for the biggest pile of dust found!   Once the pile has been made then we can tease Curtis by turning on the vacuum once again, he does love it so!

We could tie wash clothes on the baby’s hands and knees and put her in the kitchen to ‘sweep’ the floor.  She’d like that.  Then once the floor is swept we can put on socks and get some cleaning solution to wash the floor, making sure to get in the corners with our toes!  Making sure that we practice our skating techniques.  Now that sounds like a plan. 

Once we have finished all the indoor activities we could head outside.  Good fresh air, now that is something that every bored teenager needs.  Deuce is worse than a 2 year old with the stuff he finds to play with, so we can clean that up.  Just grab a garbage bag out of the cupboard and we’ll head on out the door! 

The yard needs mowing and tidying up for winter so I will let you ride my riding lawnmower to mow, someone else can use the weed wacker to give it a good trim.  Since I don’t have any trees we can’t rake up the leaves.  If you want we can go visit a neighbor and rake theirs!  We can put them all in a pile then jump in it when we are finished. 

When we are all finished we can come back and I will serve you some Hot Cocoa and Chocolate Chip cookies for all the good work you have accomplished!  We will have accomplished two things, my house getting cleaned and your boredom alleviated!  So when your bored, come on over I can fix that!