Ridiculous Things To Do After The Kids Are Asleep

It’s 8pm and our house is finally quiet. No chattering, no outside voices, no crying, no overly loud singing, no water bottles clanging on the wood floor from the high chair, and no more stomping around.

Quiet and freedom. Sigh.

There are a lot of days (most days … I’ll be completely honest) when this is what I wait for since about noon onward. But what do I do once the girls are asleep and I have freedom?

What do you do when you have the night to yourself?

I … spend too much time on the internet, do yoga, get writing done, read books, read blogs, do laundry, tackle my to-do list, accidentally fall asleep on the couch (usually watching Futurama with my husband), bake something like granola or baked oatmeal for the next days’ meals, and sometimes watch TV.

But you know what I would really like to do?

(But don’t because I’m an adult now….)

I want to play!

1. 

   Our blocks: an unfulfilled destiny.

   We have a big pile of wooden blocks – and they are great fun in the daytime … if only my girls would let me stack more than ten blocks before knocking it over or taking a piece I’m using. I have dreams, people, dreams. I could build a cathedral out of these blocks! Or the Taj Mahal! Or the Empire State building! Basically … anything. One morning my girls are going to come downstairs and see something awesome like this: … or this:… and I will blow their minds while they say, “Who played with my toys last night?!”

2. Set up all of my girls’ stuffed animals up in our living room somehow. It has to be something amazing and ridiculous at the same time. Turn the room into a circus with the animals doing trapeze? Sit them all up in a snaking line around the room like dominoes so they will tip over one another in a plush, drunken waterfall? Perch them on our couch and chairs with open books as if they’ve been reading all evening? Make a pyramid of them in the middle of the room, high school cheer squad style?
3. Go through some of the girls’ books with flaps and actually read all those fun facts they skim over when closing the flap too fast. #nerdalert
4. Play Toddler’s favorite Kindle game, Puzzingo, and solve the puzzles in categories she won’t play, like the outer space and cars puzzles. And maybe play some that she plays over and over, just to see how fun it really is. (Yes, I know … a 33-year-old playing a 3-year-old’s game … I know how pathetic that is, I really do.)
5. Go to bed early. (Yeah, right….)

Now you’ve read my bizarre ideas … have any secret wishes of your own?