We survived blue Monday and now I think we can look ahead to spring, or at least warmer days.
According to Wikipedia the third or fourth Monday in January was coined the most depressing day of the year by a holiday company called Sky Travel in 2005. They claim to have calculated the date using an equation. The formula uses many factors, including weather conditions, debt level, time since Christmas, time since failing our New Year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and feeling of a need to take action.
It sounds complicated but I think the whole month of January is a bit dark, cold and can be depressing, especially after that extreme cold we experienced last week. At -30 you can’t take the kids out to play and everyone gets a little stir crazy.
I don’t mind one or two days of cold when you can huddle inside watch movies, bake and be cozy, but a whole week was too much.
My little dog refused to go outside which meant she had to go to the bathroom inside. Super fun.
Both of my girls love to play outside so forcing them to stay indoors when the temperature dropped to below minus-20 was like having two caged animals in my house. Again, super fun.
I’m so happy to have had a couple of beautiful days since then. I appreciate the sunshine so much more now. But it wasn’t all bad, we did have some fun.
READ LAST WEEK’S THE STICKY FILES: Out with self-care and in with grace
One afternoon we dusted off the train set. We took all the tracks and laid them on the floor. They usually stay on the train table but we took them down and built a huge train track using up all the pieces. It was amazing how much moving the pieces to a larger area expanded the fun and the imagination.
Afterward, my four-year-old played with it and my 18-month-old went Godzilla on the island of Sodor — much to the amusement of her sister. But it was fun. I actually had fun playing with them. Maybe taking a toy or game to a new area of the house gives it a new lease on life.
We also did some fun crafts during the cold snap. Thank you Google for the ideas. How did our parents raise us without the internet?
READ MORE FROM THE STICKY FILES:
Raising a strong-willed child takes a strong will
One craft that I highly recommend is making new crayons out of old, broken ones. We tried this last week and it worked well.
Take all the broken crayons, peel off the wrappers, put them into a small muffin tin and throw them into the oven for ten minutes. It is a win-win-win. The crayon drawer is cleaned out, the kids have fun and you feel like a super mom for being all crafty.
@MariscaDekkema
marisca.bakker@interior-news.com
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