As parents, we are subjected to plenty of waiting time, ranging from 2 minutes to half an hour or more. Be it waiting for the school bus to arrive, waiting at the pediatrician’s office, at the playground or at the home for some chore to be completed by our kids…the list could go on and on for miles.
The waiting times at home are easy to kill, thanks to the unending supply of housework that needs our attention continuously. But when outside the house, we are mostly at a loss of what to do with such tiny fragments of time.
If only we could club all such minuscule chunks into a solid block, we could run tonnes of errands and get a lot of items checked off our daily TO DO lists effortlessly. Unfortunately, the problem with such wait times is that, more often than not, we do not have any visibility regarding the duration or nature of those wait times to be able to plan anything productive beforehand.
For some parents this is not a big deal as they easily breeze through such periods by striking up spirited conversations with fellow parents who happen to be in the same boat. Others read novels, newspapers etc or play games or listen to music on their cellphones. But for parents like me, these waiting times become especially challenging because we don’t usually enjoy getting involved in small talk with strangers and are forgetful enough to remember toting a book/newspaper or the earphones in addition to our house keys and cellphone.
So what should parents like me do then to avoid getting bored to death?
Well, here’s my list of 10 favorite things to do while waiting (needing the use of only a mobile phone or nothing at all):
