Works for Me Wednesday: On the Air!

This week, at Rocks in My Dryer, Shannon is hosting the "Mom I'm Bored!" WFMW edition.
She writes:

In today's themed edition, I'd love to hear from you alll about how you combat this issue in your home. Give us all your general outlook on the subject, or provide us with a list of specific modes of entertainment you use--whatever you'd like.

Our summers on the Ark are usually pretty busy. Between swim lessons, family vacations, the library's summer reading program, park outings, (whew~I'm not sure I'm ready for summer yet!) and the like there's an awful lot happening, but there are also ample opportunities for down time, which is where the beast of boredom tends to meet kids head on.

Let me begin by saying that I truly believe that one of the best things for a child (okay--maybe not for his/her mother) but certainly for a child is to *feel* bored. Big white spaces on the calendar invite in creativity and adventure. Summer is a perfect time for secret clubs to form, for impromptu theater performances, for madcap neighborhood olympic games and for the blessing of uninterrupted time to explore the beauty of God's world on nature walks. In my opinion, there is nothing better to spark innovation than a bored child. Granted, my brother was a genius when it came to boredom and reveled in such inspirations as taking apart radios and toasters. Given this, you'll probably want to make sure that all of the brilliant ideas your budding Einstein comes up with meet with your approval.

But there will still be moments when the boredom monster rears its ugly head. To that end, let me share a little tip that worked when the bored child of summer was ME. Understand, of course, that this was in the late seventies, so our most high-tech gadget consisted of a portable tape player (Note to my children: yes, I mean the kind that played those rectangular tapes with the twisty circles in the middle and the funny brown tape running through it; and no, we didn't have CDs back then. Amazing, huh?) which we carried around with us one summer. The purpose of this audio endeavor was to record, literally, what we did that summer. And at the end of each week, we'd lie on the floor of one of our bedrooms, ears pressed up against the speaker, and listen to the antics we had created. It was a bittersweet end to summer that year as we knew that we wouldn't have as much time--read: be as bored--once the school year commenced. We held on to that tape and replayed it over and over until it finally broke, but although the tape is gone, the memories of that summer are not of boredom, but something far more precious.

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