Making Their Own Fun

 

Lately I've been impressed with how good young children are at making their own fun--even in the most boring situations. For example, turn Ben loose in the backyard--with little more to play with than mud--and he'll stay happy for hours.

 

Put Janae in her room for a time-out, and she'll dress up her dog and have story time.

 

It really doesn't take much.

Benjamin and Janae's ability to make their own fun was really put to the test, however, on Thursday afternoon when I had to take our car in for repairs. I wasn't sure about going in to a garage with my two little ones, but after almost a week of driving what sounded like a cement truck--and turning the head of every pedestrian unfortunate enough to be walking down the street where I was driving, I decided it had to be done.

I called and made an appointment for right after Janae's nap, packed my purse with fruit snacks and granola bars, then headed off to Budget Brake and Muffler (by the way, the word "Budget" is definitely deceiving in this title).

The mechanic said we'd only have a 45-minute wait (it actually turned out to be an hour and a half), and the car had been hoisted up before I'd thought to ask to get the stroller out of the trunk, so we had to try to survive in the 4-by-6-foot waiting area.

The room had four chairs, a water cooler with cups and a candy dispenser. It also had a very grimy restroom, a glass door through which we could see our car, and a few muffler-related parts displayed on the wall.

Well, Ben and Janae not only made full use of every item in the room--swinging between the chairs, sitting upside down, re-filling their water cups over and over again (Janae was wearing big-girl undies, so this made me REALLY nervous!), pretending the candy dispenser flaps were crocodiles' mouths, and using the washroom--they also performed a loud and enthusiastic medly of Disney songs (complete with choreography), played red light/green light across the short length of the room, learned lots about fixing cars by asking the poor mechanic stranded behind the desk ALL their questions, turned around until they were dizzy enough to fall down, ran around in circles, jumped from the carpet to the floor . . . and that is actually not even a complete list!

While I was getting a pounding stress headache and becoming increasingly upset and worried as the 90 minutes passed, Janae and Ben couldn't remember when they'd had more fun!