I told them we were going to play the "Run through the house game" and they had to clean everything up, so that we wouldn't trip over anything. With a little help, they did.
While they were doing that, I wrote different "tasks" on small slips of paper, including "Kiss Mommy in the downstairs bathroom," "Sit on the chair in the lego room," "Do two push-ups in Mommy and Daddy's room," "Touch the doorknob on the front door," "Do 10 jumping jacks in the dog den." Tony held the paper bag of slips, Christopher drew out the slip, and John read it aloud. I was the final arbiter and rule-interpreter. We all had to go together, and no task counted until we all had done it. It was a great distraction.
I had about 20 slips of paper and it took about 25-30 minutes to get through all of them. Perfect for a pre-dinner, run around game. Plus it tricked the kids into straightening the whole house!
Everyone wins!!!
