Keeping them busy.......(part 1)

It has been so helpful for me to now have a clear picture and definite name for the things I'm working with in my two "high energy" ones. It makes it so much easier to have some names and to be able to pinpoint exactly what we need to do as a family to help them operate more in harmony with our entire family as a unit. This past weekend was our family reunion. Our children grow more and more excited about this annual event as the years go by. They have been asking "how many more days?" for several weeks now. The one thing they look forward to the most is swimming in the pool at the hotel. We don't get to swim in large, in ground pools very often, so this is a huge treat for them. We planned on arriving around 3:00 pm on Friday, jumping in the pool at 3:02 pm, having a picnic dinner at the tables around the pool, and going to bed when the pool closed that night.

Weeeeeeeeeeell, it didn't quite work-out that way.

We knew we were in trouble when it started raining on the way to the hotel, and when we saw the weather report after arriving, we knew our plans were doomed. So far, this weekend (and I'm writing this after arriving home on Sunday), we've had nearly 7 inches of rain!!

Rain, rain, all day and night...the whole time.

So what do you do with 6 children, 2 of which have ADHD, who want to be swimming, but are cooped up in one room in a hotel for two days?? One thing that has become crystal clear to me after handling these children for so many years now, is that they need something to do CONSTANTLY or they just get all this energy pent up inside of them, and they eventually get out-of-control. They revert to things like running around, chasing each other, and wrestling, all in what seems to me like an effort to shake off this feeling that they might explode! And I'm not talking about the normal kind of running around that all children eventually do because they are bored. You can almost feel the energy build up in the room and watch their behavior just escalate into almost a frenzy and inevitably someone gets hurt. I have found that if I can create some kind of schedule or itinerary of constructive things to do in 15-30 minute increments, it helps all of us tremendously. But that takes an enormous amount of pre-planning, and lots of packing, to pull off when you're on a trip. But I'm so glad that I did throw into our activity box several "extra" things to do in case of an emergency, because our entire weekend ended up being "an emergency". Here are some of the things we did in the hotel to kill time and fight off the wiggle worm:

Instead of getting to use these (this is where they hung the entire weekend)....

.....or getting to go into THIS.......






......we did things like this....




......and this......





.....and this.....





....and even a little of this:

There was still plenty of running in and out of our room to visit Grandma in her room, playing with some toys and games we brought along, and watching a movie (for about 15 minutes) on the portable DVD player. Overall, though, having things for them to do really saved our sanity!!!