Keeping Busy Outside While The Kids Play

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mommamaree

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I am looking for ideas on things to do while I am outside with the kids. I am very pregnant right now, so I cannot do a lot of yard maintenance, and I have a brown thumb anyway. Mowing the lawn and trimming the hedges are pretty much all I can do and that takes only one day.🙂
So for the rest of the week, what are some good ideas for things I can do on my own to keep busy while the kids are bike riding. Last week, I was doing some painting in the garage and the kids got to play outside all day long for days in a row. It was great. They got dirty and sweaty and tan and had a blast.
So what do y’all do outside, as a parent, to keep busy so your kids can play?
 
  1. juggle. or learn to juggle.
it’s really fun and what a great sense of accomplishment you gain from learning.

I spent one summer learning and have enjoyed it ever since.

other ideas:

walk/jog with weights
or best yet:

ride bikes with them, it’s fun!
 
theCrow said:
  1. juggle. or learn to juggle.
it’s really fun and what a great sense of accomplishment you gain from learning.

I spent one summer learning and have enjoyed it ever since.

other ideas:

walk/jog with weights
or best yet:

ride bikes with them, it’s fun!
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:rotfl:

Haha, did you miss the part where I said I am quite pregnant?!😃

There is no way I could ride a bike in my condition! And jogging with weights?? Not a chance.

No, my kids are little, so they have tricycles and bicycles with training wheels, and they ride on our long flat driveway on our property. I was thinking of something a little more sedate for my pregnant self to do in the subtropical summer heat, other than reading. I enjoyed the productivity of painting last week, but that project is now complete.

Any other ideas?
 
In general, I like knowing what other parents do to keep busy while watching their kids during leisure time. That is why I started this thread, really. It is why I love Pinterest, too. Sharing hobbies and trying new things is fun, and I know there are a lot of more outdoorsy families out there that know all about prolonging their enjoyment of the outdoors. 👍
 
Do you knit or crochet? I don’t, but I always imagined that if I did I could sit outside and watch my perfectly behaved children wearing their brightest whites playing happily outdoors while I quietly knitted booties for the next baby.

In reality, I’m playing a free game on my iPhone or checking emails.

How about getting a big crossword puzzle book?
 
I find outside time is really nice to catch up on my reading. No matter how much childproofing I do, I find that being inside requires a lot of referreeing and "ack! no! don’t touch that!"s. 😛 But the kids’ outdoor time is my leisure time, too! (I do play with them a fair bit, as well.)

I also tend to use that time to put my clothes out on the line. I’m already out there keeping an eye on the kids, so might as well grab my clothespins and wet laundry and save some money on the electric bill. 👍
 
When my middle child was a toddler/preschooler, I’d talk on the phone to family while watching him or do a little light weeding.

It’s hot enough in our part of the country that the idea of going outside between 10 and 4 and staying there is a bit foreign, at least from June-August.
 
PhiloMed said:
Do you knit or crochet? I don’t, but I always imagined that if I did I could sit outside and watch my perfectly behaved children wearing their brightest whites playing happily outdoors while I quietly knitted booties for the next baby.

In reality, I’m playing a free game on my iPhone or checking emails.

How about getting a big crossword puzzle book?
Click to expand...
I DO knit. My (im)perfectly behaved children (and now the grandsons I’m raising) never wore white, and booties or indeed any socks usually required 5 or 6 double pointed needles in itty sizes.

However, what does work once the children are at least 3 (sigh, I have another year to wait as younger boy is not yet 2), is LARGE NEEDLES and easy patterns.

Here is a great one. Portable and easy and useful for your local animal shelter.

Use size 13 needles (I like bamboo ones, or a nice ebony). Take 2 balls of worsted yarn (I like Caron Simply Soft) in contrast colors, or use one ball of variegated and one ball of black or a dark color. Using one strand of each ball of yarn, tie together and cast on 33 stitches. Knit 66 rows. Bind off.

Voila. . you have a nice, washable, soft and sturdy cat blanket to donate in your child(ren)'s name to the animal shelter. I usually get at least 2 or 3 blankets out of the two 3-1/2 ounce balls of yarn. You don’t have to look at your knitting, and you don’t even have to count really because garter stitch makes ridges (2 rows equals 1 ridge). Once you have 33 ‘ridges’, you have your correct rows, and it really doesn’t matter with gauge.

You can pick up and put down as you like.

And congratulations on your pregnancy!
 
How about simply having a water balloon fight and forgetting the work end of things? Everyone gets cooled off that way, and it sure won’t hurt the lawn.
 
Here’s the truth, very soon you will be very busy and very tired. Take advantage of this time by sitting quietly, relaxing and doing what you please. Quiet relaxation will be hard to come by soon so get some now!
 
PhiloMed said:
Do you knit or crochet? I don’t, but I always imagined that if I did I could sit outside and watch my perfectly behaved children wearing their brightest whites playing happily outdoors while I quietly knitted booties for the next baby.

In reality, I’m playing a free game on my iPhone or checking emails.

How about getting a big crossword puzzle book?
Click to expand...
I used to crochet and have been thinking today about taking it up again. Crosswords are a great idea, too. Thanks!
 
mountee said:
Here’s the truth, very soon you will be very busy and very tired. Take advantage of this time by sitting quietly, relaxing and doing what you please. Quiet relaxation will be hard to come by soon so get some now!
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Haha, I am already very busy and very tired! I am expecting my 5th after all! I like quiet relaxation, but I like to keep my hands busy or my mind active while my body rests.

I will definitely try the crochet and crosswords and reading a book (want to avoid screen time outside, so no tablet or phone, I think).

I have found recently that I feel better if I alternate periods of rest with spurts of activity throughout the day, and adding in more time outside always makes me feel more peaceful. But like I said before, I cannot garden with my brown thumb, and so I thought I would find out what other parents do while outside for leisure time. 🙂

Thanks everyone for your suggestions!
 
mommamaree said:
Maybe I will organize the garage…:D:p
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I was going to say, my mother always put us to work (but we liked it) organizing and sweeping out the garage every spring. We had those awesome big push brooms. There was always one child who wanted to use it. Washing windows and screens is another one. We would lay the screens on the driveway and spray them with the hose and wipe them down with a cloth, while mom and older children hauled buckets of soapy water around the house washing (and drying) the windows. Or wash a car with the kids. Then you get stuff accomplished and let the kids do some of the work.
 
I am a list maker. I would take a notebook and a pen and make lists. Dinner menus, (I would plan a months worth sometimes) grocery shopping, cleaning priorities, honey do list for myself :D. I also would design new flower beds and draw them, and make lists of what I need. I would take cookbooks or gardening books out of the library and copy out things I wanted to try. Sometimes I make up recipes of my own to try and variations of recipes.

It cost me nothing but some paper, but it kept me engaged enough that I wasn’t bored, and sometimes, the lists were actually useful. 🙂
 
If you want to work your mind out while you are outside, but you don’t want to just sit and read, perhaps you would enjoy using this time to memorize Scripture.

Pick something good, like Psalm 27 or Romans 8, or whatever you find edifying. Then memorize it. It’s amazing how those verses can be used by the Holy Spirit for the rest of your life.

You could set a goal to have a chapter memorized by the time your baby is born. I’m betting that you will always associate that chapter of the Bible with that child, which is a lovely concept. Perhaps along with memorizing the chapter, you could also pray each verse for your unborn child.

Even if you just manage to memorize one or two verses, that’s one or two verses more than you knew before!
 
I go to the library and get books on tape. I use my computer to cut them from CD to MP3, and I have a little MP3 table, the kind for runners. Having someone read a book to you makes walking around a little more interesting.

As for the garden, when you’re not up to little tasks like weed-pulling, you could take a notebook and make lists: Lists of things you could do with the space, pick-up lists, measurements, that sort of thing. Usually garden planning goes on in the winter, but in the winter it can be too muddy to easily go out and walk off distances. Besides, it is often easier to envision what is wanted when the plants are filled out and you can walk around and sit here and look at the view, then go over there and sit and look at the view from there, and so on, and at different times of the day. You can live in the space you’re planning in the summer, when you’ll be using it the most. You can also take note of which parts of your yard get how much sunlight, and when–at 8 am, the light is so in July and in September, at 10 am, here, at noon, here, at 2 pm here, at 4 pm here, in the evening, here. That will help you place beds and pick out plants, so your roses and tomatoes get plenty of light. That can help you figure how you want to irrigate… lots of things to think about!

That’s just one of the things you can plan into your notebook while you’re watching the kids! You have to look at the notebook later, though, and organize all those great ideas into projects. (Well, if you have a laptop or IPad and WiFi from the house, probably you can do some organizing and online research, too…)
 
Oh I should also mention that my husband has “forbidden” any gardening until I am no longer having babies! 😃

He got sad and frustrated watching me try, year after year, to get a garden going, all while either pregnant or with a nursling. I would get my hopes up that maybe this time, this year, I would be able to grow something (wildflowers, vegetables, herbs, etc) only to have my hopes dashed as the subtropical sun and the poor soil in our region caused all the lovely green little plants to wither and die off.

So. No garden planning for me, I am afraid.

Which is another reason I am so clueless about what exactly I can do to enjoy the outdoors. Our yard is basically a giant ant hill (as in Southern Fire Ants) and we have a horrible problem with mosquitoes in our area and the grass won’t grow. So playing in the grass with the kids, like with a sprinkler, is a bad idea. The driveway it is, for us.
 
mommamaree said:
Oh I should also mention that my husband has “forbidden” any gardening until I am no longer having babies! 😃

He got sad and frustrated watching me try, year after year, to get a garden going, all while either pregnant or with a nursling. I would get my hopes up that maybe this time, this year, I would be able to grow something (wildflowers, vegetables, herbs, etc) only to have my hopes dashed as the subtropical sun and the poor soil in our region caused all the lovely green little plants to wither and die off.

So. No garden planning for me, I am afraid.

Which is another reason I am so clueless about what exactly I can do to enjoy the outdoors. Our yard is basically a giant ant hill (as in Southern Fire Ants) and we have a horrible problem with mosquitoes in our area and the grass won’t grow. So playing in the grass with the kids, like with a sprinkler, is a bad idea. The driveway it is, for us.
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One suggestion that you might try is to simply sit back and imprint your children on your memory. Try to observe every detail about them–what they’re wearing, their hair, their skin, their smile, their eyes, their voices–every little detail.

It’s almost like you’re filming a movie–you’re recording, in your mind, your children on any given day.

So often we simply glide through the days with our young children, and then one day we wake up and we’re standing at their graduation party watching them discuss their college plans with their friends–and we realize that it’s over and we missed most of it.

That’s when that “memory imprint” is so precious. If you have a few of those in your mind, you can re-run them and remember that beautiful day and your beautiful children.

I tried to do that when my girls were little, and I have a few dozen such “imprints” in my mind–days where I remember every detail, even what they were wearing. It’s almost as if I can be back in time and present again on those days. No big special days, but just simple days when the girls were playing or nursing or chatting. So precious.

Give it a try.
 
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