254 : Bubbles to the Rescue

Whoever says they like January in Chicago is lying to you.  I mean yes, the month of January brings a fresh start to the new year.  College bowl games.  Perhaps a renewed interest in working out or eating better.  But other than that, come on.  It was freezing here.  Literally.  Our family had been plagued with colds since Christmas and so when I realized I was about to endure a weekend with both boys by myself and we were all sick- I was slightly terrified.  Being trapped indoors just made the weekend so much longer.  For all of us.  I did my best on Saturday to surrender control and just let my boys have a good time.  At 9am they had already exhausted every toy in the house and needed something new.  So they tore apart the couch and did cannonballs onto the pillows.  This was satisfying for a good 15 minutes, which I must say was impressive.  Then my youngest took a nap so my oldest and I decorated cards to be used as thank you's for our holiday gifts.  At 10:30 my new bed was delivered (see post #246) and my oldest was mesmerized with the men assembling it.  In fact, I had to wake up my youngest to watch the action because I didn't want him to miss out.  They left by 11 and I thought baths would be a good next activity.  The boys like pretending they were swimming.  And so we had made it to lunch.  Hooray!  Now I only had naps and then a few hours until bed time.  I had this.  Naps were a success (for all 3 of us) and we woke up with a snack and a show.  Now here was where it got tricky.  Though only 2 hours from dinner to bed, those 2 hours tended to feel LONG.  Very very long.  The boys broke into my kitchen and took all my pots and pans out to be used in their play kitchen.  (Again, I surrendered).  And just when I thought we were all about to lose it- my oldest discovered the bubble machine under the sink.  It had been forgotten about and batteries needed to be replaced but within a few minutes it was up and running.  You would have thought this thing was spitting out more than bubbles.  Both of my boys giggled and jumped around catching the bubbles for probably 45 minutes.  I kid you not.  I thought I was a goner and then the bubbles saved the day!  It was genius!  And yet so simple.  Seeing my kids burst with smiles and laughter over such a simple treat just reminded me once again how lucky I was.  They were both happy kids.  They were healthy.  They were all boy (see cannonball reference earlier).  And I loved them so much.  So what if it was only Saturday and we had another whole day to survive before going back to work.  We'd get there.  We'd get there together.