"Sixteen Days of The-Never-Ending-Christmas-Vacation

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved to pay for Winter Vacation Camp

We are now in Day 3 of the "Sixteen-Days of-the-Never-Ending-Christmas-Vacation-of-original-toys/games-to-entertain yourself-without-spending-any-Money if you don't count therapy sessions.

Now I concede that more than one child has had more fun playing with the boxes than with the presents that came in them. And most children with a yard have played mud pies or in the sand pile with just a spoon and a tin can. My children, however, seem to have set the bar for creative play things.

How many children have spent three weeks entertaining themselves by dragging around a flip flop tied to a short piece of rope? Granted, he was three years old but most of the time you can't keep a three-year-old's attention more than three seconds, much less three weeks. And wadding his sisters' shorts into a ball then wrapping a towel around it to form baby "Coverly" is a classic example of a super creative child, or one with some serious issues.

I sold our ancient piano a few years ago but that did not deter my children from developing the right or is it the left side of their brains. I can't remember because my brain has turned to mush. On Day One of the Never-Ending-Vacation, I was privileged to hear a twelve-hour outdoor concert for white plastic barrel, hammer, and galvanized pipe. Music was written with lyrics and actually sung, sort of. The windows in the house are still vibrating.

On Day Two of the Never-Ending-Vacation, when they couldn't find the hammer (I had confiscated it) the five-year-old and the nine-year-old invented the Roll-Out-the-Barrel-with-Your-Sibling-in-It activity. The nine-year-old put her brother inside the plastic barrel and rolled him down the hill. They actually took turns trying to knock the other's brains out and to see who could get the dirtiest as each rolled through the piles of ashes left over from burning leaves. Since I could only see the whites of their eyes as they came mumbling incoherently in to supper, I declared it a tie.

Day Three of the Never-Ending, well, you know, found both children in the pasture again with their toy of choice, the white plastic barrel; only this time they weren't inside rolling down the hill. I had carefully explained that Medicare did not cover barrel-rolling-induced-strokes in elderly mothers. Instead they had straddled the toy four wheel 'gator and were busy "herding" the barrel all over the pasture. I don't know if they were inventing a variation on NASCAR, demolition derby, or playing 21^st century Cowboys. If I had known they could have had this much fun with a plastic barrel, I would have gotten them one long ago. Hubby said it was a genetic throwback to his old car tire rolling days although he had to admit he never participated in the Get-Inside-the-Tractor-Tire-and-Roll-through-the-Cow-Patties activity.

The children have now been bathed. It only took a thirty minute soaking followed by fifteen minutes of scrubbings using one bottle of body wash per child tonight. I have had my Valium, Advil, Zoloft, and a quick three minute shower. I had caught just the tail end of their conversation "With the drill and the jigsaw..." so I dared not take any longer.

Tomorrow will be Day Four with only twelve more days left in the "Never-Ending-Christmas-Vacation". I am currently searching the internet for Holiday Camps. Spring break will be here before you know it!