Boredom and Wisdom
For the past 16 days, I have been the parent in charge at home, every day, all day long, with my two elementary age boys. We did not go on any vacation, having spent our vacation budget on a trip to Atlanta over November. We were, in a word, stuck at home. Stuck. At. Home. We did, however, engage in a wide range of activities, both at home and away. Indoor play spaces, building ginger bread houses, bowling, numerous games of strategy and chance, books, lots of movies. At the beginning of the holiday I drew up a list of activities for us to do and solicited further suggestions from the boys. Aside from these excursions, with the cold weather, we were mostly confined inside. We were lucky enough to score warm-enough weather for two walks. Nonetheless, we were all faced with a substantial amount of boredom and the frustration that comes with boredom. Being stuck at home, and maybe not being so good at building a nearby social network, there were only so many things we could