What a rainy Tuesday actually looks like

People ask what the children do all day, and I usually give an answer that sounds tidier than the truth. So here is one ordinary Tuesday, written down more or less as it happened.

Morning

First arrival at 6:40, still half asleep, straight onto the couch with a blanket. Two more by 7:15. Breakfast is oatmeal and the toddler decides today is a no-oatmeal day, which is fine, there is toast.

By 8:30 the school run is done and there are four of us left. Rain that had been threatening all morning starts properly, so the park is off.

The part where nothing worked

I had a plan. The plan was leaf printing. I had collected leaves on Sunday specifically for this.

Nobody wanted to print leaves.

What they wanted was to take every cushion off the couch and build something. So we did that instead, and it took ninety minutes, and at some point it became a boat, and then the boat needed passengers, and the baby got installed as a passenger and was extremely pleased about it.

I have been doing this long enough to know that the ninety minutes on the cushion boat were worth more than the leaf printing would have been. Still felt a small pang about the leaves.

Afternoon

Lunch was chicken and rice and roasted carrots. Two clean plates, one negotiated plate, one baby who mostly wore it.

Naps went down easy, which happens on rainy days. The four year old does not nap anymore, so she sat at the table and worked on writing her name. She has the A and the N. The rest is still a rumour.

After snack the rain let up enough that we got twenty minutes in the yard, which is really all anyone needed. Puddles. Boots. One soaker.

What I would tell a parent about this day

Nothing measurable happened. No worksheet came home. If you asked the four year old what she did, she would say "nothing."

But she spent ninety minutes negotiating with a two year old about where the boat was going, ate a vegetable she claims not to like, wrote two letters of her name without being asked twice, and jumped in a puddle deep enough to fill her boot.

That is a good day. Most of the good ones look like nothing from the outside.