Wondering if I Should be Insulted

I'm in the midst of Camp Peanut over here. The one thing I've noticed since Peanut's been out of school is that he does much better when he's busy. The more outings, adventures, activities we have, the better behaved he is and the happier we all are.

The problem with this, is that I can hardly keep up. There are only so many at home activities I can brainstorm in a day after I've exhausted offering puzzles, games, Play-Doh, water paints, inflatable pools, stories... Most of the time my efforts are shot down with an "I want to play trains" or "I want to watch TV" (that one kills me a little more each time).

In order to diversify his interests, we've been taking advantage of all our Atlanta-area memberships. Last week, we hit up two different playgrounds, the pool, Fernbank, the Children's Museum and Target (hey, it's next to a busy train track so that totally counts as a field trip). The problem with this is I have completely succeeded in ruining Pumpkin's nap time schedule. He doesn't know when he needs to sleep or catches a nap in the car seat and as a result, spends much of his day overtired and cranky refusing crib naps when he most needs them. This week, as a result, I'm trying to slow the schedule down a bit and see if we can get Pumpkin back on the nap track.

Instead, I've been working really hard to keep Peanut occupied and interested in a variety of activities at home. But two days in a row now, Peanut has thrown an absolute fit. Why? Because he can't go to his friends' house. Yesterday, we had our normal workout and post-workout play date at the playground. As we were leaving, I had to drag Peanut away from D's stroller. He wanted to go to D's house desperately. I tried talking up all the fun things we could do at home. D's mama tried boring him with the list of things she needed to do: grocery shopping, laundry, chores. Peanut replied he loved the grocery store and would help D with his chores (if only Peanut would do the ones I ask of him at home with such enthusiasm). Today, Peanut's friend J was over for a play date. Peanut insisted he was going to go home with J. I told him that no, we had things we needed to do here and J and his mommy had things to do this afternoon, too. Again, another scene. This one complete with "It's booooooring here."

My kid is basically telling me I'm no fun. Great. Either I stink as a cruise director or his teenage years are really gonna kill me.

Either way, we're in for another long afternoon.