Hey, it’s me, Rachael.  I used to be cool and fun pre-kids, but now I am a fun mom.  Look here’s me back when I was so fun!  I’m sure I’ll be adventuresome again one day, but for now I’m all about being a fun mom.  Do not misunderstand this with permissive or letting my kids get into crazy stuff–no, this means being silly and a person that your kid wants to hang around.

These are some of my favorite ideas to make things fun for the kids and for myself.  Whenever I employ these tactics, the kids have such a great time and everyone is in a better mood.  I challenge you to try some of mine and I bet you already have some awesome ideas of your own!  We are such fun moms!

• Play I-Spy

We play I-Spy just about any time we are in the car.  We are driving on a short trip, long trip, waiting for Dad to pick up Chipotle you betcha we are playing I-spy.  “I spy with my little eye something that is blue!”  “I spy with my little eye something that is a rectangle!”  My 4-year-old loves this game.  He also loves telling me what he spies after I guess once, but ya know he’s happy and entertained so whatevs, I only get one guess.

• Have a Dance Party

This is a tactic I use in the winter mostly.  I bought a little light that’s sort of like a disco ball and it projects lights.  It even plays to the beat of the music, which what?!  So cool!  We pop on some Go Noodle and the kids go crazy.  Everyone in the family dances.

• Make your own Handshake

My son and I have a quirky little handshake.  We make a fist and bump it and then high five our thumbs.  We are weird, it’s fine, we are fine.  It’s our little thing and we both love it.  Make up your own with your kids!  Along a similar line, we cheers everything.  Chips, drinks, hot dogs…if it’s yummy, we are cheers-ing (hmm, not sure about that word, but you know what I mean!)

• Have Picnics

Listen, have we met?  We love picnics.  I’ve talked about them a lot.  Picnics are great in a park, in the basement, in the car…so much picnic.  See some of my other posts here and here that talk about how we love to picnic.

• Take Me Away!

We did this one this past summer.  This is really fun.  We got in the car and I said ok, Declan, you are telling me when to turn and when to go straight on the road and when we spot a place we want to stop, we will stop.  Of course the place we wanted to stop at was a park so we kept going until we found a park.  We ended up at a school playground.  It was fun, it was exciting and it was a new playground for us so everyone enjoyed the stop.

• Glow Stick Party or Bath

When the days get shorter–boo daylight savings time fall back–we often get out the glow sticks and play some silly music to get out energy.  I always stock up on glow sticks at the dollar store so we have some on hand.  We turn off all of the lights and let the glow sticks light the way.  It’s really fun and silly.  On Halloween night this year, I let the kids have a glow stick bath.  We turned off the lights in the bathroom and they had about 6 glow sticks in the water.  It was awesome.  They thought this was the coolest!

• Using silly voices while reading
• Hide and Seek
• Sound Effects for everything–getting dressed, getting in the car or any routine
• Made up songs for tasks like putting on shoes, taking medicine, brushing teeth. I just made up a song this morning for my daughter to take her Echinacea. Echinacea comin atcha! Echinacea comin atcha! These lyrics are gold, I know.
• Racing to the car, to the bathtub, to the park
• Being silly and running into a wall or a counter on purpose as a distraction
• Make up silly rhymes
• Yes Day! There’s a movie about this. Have you seen it? I haven’t yet, but I want to.
• Go grocery shopping and give your child a picture list that they use and shop for those items.
• Pool Noodle Sword Fight
• Do Mommy’s make-up or hair
• Water Balloon Fight
• Piggy Back Rides
• Move fast like a (cheetah), move slow like a (turtle)–use your own animals
• Marching band walk, crab walk, whatever walk you want to do, but make it silly!
• Puppet shows
• Give Kisses like a certain animal
• It’s time to leave, who can do the best silly walk to the car?
• Clean by color or shape. This works really well for my kids!
• 3 hand squeezes means I love you!
• Give tons of compliments
• Parents, put your devices away
• Tickle
• Play with them on their level–build with magnatiles, cook in the play kitchen