The Doldrums Tree

That's from The Phantom Tollbooth, the Doldrums. So my friend Jess had a list of all these ideas for kids to do when they're stir crazy during summer. Of course, my children aren't allowed to say they're "bored" because I taught them that bored means "not smart enough to think of something to do." So I've damaged their psyches a little bit. Anyway, I took Jessica's ideas we could do and added some of my own I thought of, plus searched the internet for more and wrote each idea down on a little tag. The orange ones are just for Jules, like "wash doll clothes" and the blue ones are just for Eric, like "transform all the transformers to vehicle mode."

There are a couple rules about the Doldrums tree, such as You have to be in the Doldrums to get to pick something, and Whatever you pick you have to do. The only trouble is that the children want to pick stuff all the time. I'm making dinner and it's supposed to be clean-up time and Jules is all,"can I just pick one thing, ONE THING, from the Doldrums tree?" and I'm like,"No way, squirt, it's clean-up time." Plus I was gone one day and Seth let the children pick something but kept making them pick again because every idea required ADULT PARTICIPATION. Make cookies, take a walk. anyway, I don't mine participating with them unless it's naptime, so it's pretty good so far. If I'd thought of it, I would have put up the list of all the different activity ideas before we taped them all up on the wall.