Simple picnic = quiet house!

On the weekend the house was LOUD! I needed quiet. So I invented a simple picnic for small people and it provided a lovely quiet house...

Here's my recipe for a quiet house (applicable to small people between the ages of 2 and 10):

- Provide a simple picnic. This one consisted of cheese toasted sandwiches and ice cold water to be poured. Simple in content, but not quite everyday because of the toasting and the iced water. Not normal school lunch fodder. 

- Packaging of the picnic is key! Find a basket, tray, esky, big container and put all of the picnic gear into it. This can then be carried outside. It doesn't have to be pretty or matching, vintage or retro, the small people won't care! They only care that it's not normal and what they do every other day.

- Provide a rug, blanket, sheet to be laid out and sat on. Try not to mind when the said rug gets used to make ghost-like monsters by any male members of the picnic party! In fact, turn a blind eye unless some-one is going to hurt ;-)

- If available provide a guard dog. The dog probably won't need encourage to sit close by! With those cheesey crusts just waiting to be tossed to the dog this pup would sit here all day.

- Plonk hats on all small people. Accentuate that they are eating outside and that they are VERY welcome to play on after eating their lunch... there is definitely no need to hurry inside. In fact, the longer they stay outside the happier their mother will be!

Then the fun will begin. They'll start off decorously but probably quite quickly the 'genteel' picnic will deteriorate into chaos. BUT you will be safely inside enjoying a cup of tea in a QUIET house... and really, who cares if the drink is completely spilt and the container used to demonstrate some recently learnt scientific experiment?! It's outside...

And that faithful hound will eat any remaining food scraps. Or the birds will!

Hope you have some quietness about you. It's definitely something that my soul needs. To cope with all of the difficult things in life. And to survive the 'loudness' that is in our house usually.

Happy Tuesday!