Stir Crazy and It's Only November

I'm not sure I can survive the winter.

Not emotionally, at least.

Take away one day of working out -- two hours of time with adult people away from those who reach my waist or less -- and I'm a basket case. OK, take away my workout and instead give me two miserable weather days cramped up with three children in a small house where our most entertaining option is a game of GIANT BABY (don't ask), and I'm losing it.

OK, so you had to ask. Giant baby involves me hold the baby, who isn't yet vertical all the time, up at waist level or higher in a vertical position and chasing the older girls in circles through the house. The baby loves it. She laughs and squeals. The girls love it. They laugh and squeal at a frequency that might shatter crystal. The dogs think someone is getting hurt and they get nervous and bristly. It makes my head and back hurt.

Yes, for two days the four of us have spent eight hours together with nothing more interesting to look at than the television. Papi comes in on the tail end of the day for his dose of fun and I want to run screaming from the house as soon as supper is on the table.

Tuesday, my daughter noted my frazzled look and told me she'd buckle them in. I went back to the house with tired tears seeping from my eyes.

I love my granddaughters. Please, don't get me wrong. I would not send them to anyone else for daycare. I can't imagine the days without them. But I'm programmed to be outside and they have spent so much time with me that their programming likewise is get outdoors. Chase a leaf, splash in a puddle, ride a bike, go for a hike, drag brush, pretend to be birds and soar around the yard. Run, squeal, move. Inside, well, we're all a bit stir crazy and it comes out by the end of the day.

We all need an outlet for our energy that doesn't involve running in circles around the butcher block island, dumping out or picking up all the toys in the playroom, or simply torturing one another out of frustration.

Last winter I bought a bounce house that will fit quite tidily on the front porch. Unfortunately, it's been too cold or wet to deploy it. It will also fit in the playroom, thank God.

So to fight the frustration we cleared the center of the playroom floor, piling toys anywhere they would fit,shoved the pack and play against the book case, and engaged the bounce house. Even E3 loved it, although she had to content herself with mainly watching the other girls as I wouldn't let her inside while they were bouncing. Her glee when I enforced a break and let her crawl inside, however, was thorough.

Although I didn't get the fix I needed, and had to put up with the rearranging, refereeing and noise of the big blower, I realized it was a small price to pay for lowering the overall discontent in the house. Once again I had to remind myself that I'm the adult, and I'm the one who has to figure out how to make things better, and that even if I seem to make things better only for the little people, my sacrifice will be rewarded with a bit more sanity.

So I guess I'll be firing up the little bounce house until the girls get tired of it, which may not take long as a summer of outings has introduced them to bigger and better bounce houses with climbing walls and slides. Yep, that was my fault. I let them go through the adult sized obstacle course a few too many times. But those are also available and it could be that I decide the investment, if I can find a place for it, is well worth it.

While the rural county where I live has come a long way in developing outdoor recreation, our indoor opportunities, especially for preschoolers, are pretty much nonexistent, despite some large governmental lobbies that I could see housing an indoor playground quite handily. My husband says the noise would be a bother to the workers, but I think closed doors would take care of that and, having worked in one of those buildings, I know there's not a lot that needs quiet that doesn't get a closed door already.

So instead I'll be taking advantage of good old McDonald's and its monster indoor playground. But first I have to find a way to avoid the Happy Meals, because face it, they have the nutritional value of the box in which they are packed, plus a piece of junk toy to boot. Once that hurdle is cleared, I think I'll start scheduling a weekly McDonald's run -- maybe for ice cream? I'm sure toting E3 through the structure will give me a great workout and get me out of the house, so it could turn into a win-win situation.

Oh, I forgot to mention I play on the equipment, too. Hey, they didn't have those when I was a kid, and three preschoolers gives me a great excuse to be the scary lady on the slide.

In Praise of Adult Entertainment

Made you look! But no, not that kind of entertainment.

When you spend your weekdays with preschoolers, your Saturday with hairy dogs and your Sunday at church, a little bit of adult recreation can be hard to come by. Generally, by the time I've finished my chores on Saturday, I'm happy to take a shower and curl up on the couch with a book or computer while my husband tunes into college football, which I may or may not watch.

Face it. Without a little coaxing, we married grown ups tend to slip into a "man, I'm tired mode" with our weekend free time. Usually, that's not a lie. We spend our weeks racing through our jobs and household responsibilities and down time in hard to come by. It's just too darn easy to not plan anything and let the TV host our activities.

But Saturday evening we went to a birthday party. Not a kids' birthday party -- been to a lot of those in the last few years -- but a surprise 40th birthday party for a friend. And we had a blast. I didn't even mind crawling into bed at 1 a.m. after cleaning up after a dog whose bladder had let loose sometime before we made it home. It was worth it.

I'll admit, we went not knowing what to expect, or who, beyond the guest of honor. When you're a kid and go to a party, chances are good you'll know the other kids. When you take kids to a party, you'll know the other kids' parents because you often move in a small circle. Once you get to be an adult, that circle expands and becomes people you work with, people you go to church with, and sometimes a friend or two with some history and common interests. Those circles often don't overlap.

So although the birthday girl and I are friends, our hubbies had been together twice. It isn't a close bond on their part. And we thoroughly expected to not know anyone else. Turned out that through my previous job and my current one, I did know some more people. And through motorcycles and riding, my husband had something in common with a lot of the male guests.

Soon it was two hours in and we were all laughing our heads off at the birthday girl opening her gifts. She was taken aback by the party and the friends her husband had rounded up and she was hamming it up for the gift opening. Add that to our comments on her presents and it was better than a comedy club. I was realizing I hadn't been to an adult party in I could not remember when.

Then she talked us into staying after the older generation left for some time in the basement and some music. Although the younger generation of teens was around, they were upstairs fighting over video games and cell phone chargers. There was no need for an adult to supervise.

An adult beverage in hand (nope, no juice boxes here), we adjourned to the basement for a few more hours of good times. We're not talking cranking up the CD player here. We're talking live music with guitars and drums and computerized lyrics if the vocalist forgot the words.

Our aging group of friends includes some rockers who used to play at local venues and they had a couple of younger musicians in training as well. The neighbors don't mind if they rock it out in their basement, and so they did. They have a wide repertoire and took requests. The volume was loud, the drums were crashing and the guitars were great. If the singer lost their voice or the lyrics, we didn't seem to care. I even took the mic for an old Patsy Cline number I knew from growing up in a country music household where my mom used to belt it out when I was small. It was fun and a bit terrifying at the same time (kind of like ziplining).

Although it was a little tough dragging out of bed and toting a cup of coffee out in the brisk fall air to tend the dogs this morning, it was well worth the effort. I felt relaxed and reset and reminded myself that we don't do this enough. I think throughout the summer we've managed maybe three or four adult outings. Seriously, we need to do this more often.

So I think I'll put that on my to-do list along with my Monday fitness outing.

Make time once a month for something with at least one other adult couple. And if the first couple I invite doesn't have time (or perhaps is having one of those spells like we've had), then I'll by gosh call someone else. Even if it's just dinner and sitting around together watching TV, I think we can put it in the relaxation and resting category for our weekend. If we manage a little more, well, that's OK, too.

In the midst of work and children and making ends meet, we need to remember we need some adult entertainment sometimes, too.