Cooking dinner with a house full of kids might be one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. Sure, my life might be pretty pampered, but it is really hard. So I always try and find simple quiet activities to keep my kids busy and engaged, and out from under my feet. While I know that the TV works fairly well for this task, I don’t like resorting to the electric babysitter. Especially not every single day.

One of our most recent activities was a car wash for my son’s little cars. He has a huge box of them, and they are one of his favorite things to play with. So we laid a towel down on the floor, lined up all his little cars then grabbed a lasagna sized pan that I wasn’t using. I put about an inch of water in the pan, And gave him an old toothbrush. Then I simple asked him to wash all of his little cars. Each and everyone was individually driven into the pan, then sent through a rigorous, cleaning and scrubbing process. And each and every car was also thoroughly dried. It took him about forty five minutes total to wash all of his cars. Which luckily was the same amount of time it took me to prepare dinner.

Now, his older sister wasn’t interested in washing cars, but the same idea worked for her and her small dolls. They had a good spa night while I was able to cook. And really, the toys really did need the cleaning.

-Stephanie Wright