One of the upsides of our extended trip away is that we get loads of time to spend with our kids. And, yeah, you guessed it, one of the downsides is loads of time to spend with our kids. They're still small (4.5 and almost 3) so there is a limit on how much they can entertain themselves, or each other. We're still required to play and interact a lot. Most of the time this is fine (before anyone yells at me under the assumption that I don't enjoy my kids) but sometimes I really can't be bothered to play. At times like this I pull out a 'lazy game'. I love lazy games for two reasons:
1) They're easy
2) I find it hilarious how easy it is to dupe a kid, and how easily I was duped as a kid when my parents clearly couldn't be bothered either.
My go to lazy games are:
1.Hide and seek - this is great with young kids as they don't appear to need to do the hiding themselves. So I take myself off with a book/my phone and find a kick-ass hiding place and stay there for twenty minutes. Last time we played this I sat in the wardrobe and dozed for a good half hour while the kids looked for me. My son even took the sombrero off my head without seeing me under it! (this game doesn't necessarily count as truly lazy as the kids had to co-opt their dad in to finding me I was so well hidden. Still, I was having fun!)
2.Sergeant-Major - I sit still and tell the kids to do random stuff. We usually play this at bedtime so I can include the putting on of pjyamas without a fight. In this game they generally have to do some jumping, some animal impressions, whatever exercise they've just learned at school and some Spanish vocab, and sometimes they have to bite daddy on the bum.
3.Fake treasure hunts - this just made it in to our list. One parent sends/takes kids around telling them to do random shit while the other hides a toy. Once toy is hidden, kids can find it. We played this on the beach for almost three hours yesterday. I took kids around, shouting, 'walk ten paces then jump... now the next clue is look for chairs... now you need to touch you toes...' while their dad buried their inflatable swords in the sand. I kid you not, almost three hours.
4.Hiding lunch - if you can't be arsed by lunchtime then this is a good one. Hard boil some eggs, write names on them, bag up some crackers and then hide it all, plus fruit, around the house. Only two problems here: 1. ants if you're silly enough to hide inappropriate food like spaghetti; and 2. kids ask for meals to be hidden every sodding time after you do it once.
5.Hotels - where mummy (or daddy, obv) is the guest and the kids have to make the guest as comfortable as possible. Usually I lie on the floor and kids bring me pillows, blankets and imaginary food. Sometimes I get a spa trip and they give me a massage too. This is truly a game of genius and I give it to you for free. You're welcome.
6.Numbers - probably only works on little kids. I hide pieces of paper with numbers as numbers and as words. Kids have to find them all (super exciting) and then have to put them in the correct order. Genius because they think they're playing but actually I'm conning them in to learning. Hah.
7.How fast can you? - this was my parents' favourite. They used to time us running up and down the stairs and all over the house. Pretty sure they never actually timed us but just carried on reading or whatever while shouting out random numbers. I laugh at how stupid I was.
What brilliant lazy games do you have in your family?
For more antics from my family abroad, do check out my blog at: yacasillegamosblog.wordpress.com