Wow this child is busy

We try to keep Jack busy. He has been in some sort of "preschool" since Keith left for Afghanistan and I needed help and a break every once in a while. Even if it was only two days a week, we have always had him in some place where he could go and play and burn off steam. He loved his preschool in Okinawa, Little Rhinos, and he really enjoyed his preschool this spring at First Methodist Day School, the church where I grew up.

When we can to Sugar Land for the summer, I had Keith sign him up at the YMCA for just a day camp in June. He went for three weeks and absolutely loved it. They had everything that was right up his alley, craft time, gymnastics and a music class. He never wanted to leave when I went to pick him up.

His last day was last Friday because we are really busy all of July with lots of vacations and travelling and then in August we are, of course, moving again. So, that means this week, just two days so far, he has been home with me all morning.

Weekends or a few days a week are one thing. On a weekend, Keith is here, and we usually have stuff to do or we plan activities in advance to keep these guys busy. In Okinawa, on the Tuesday he didn't have school we had gymnastics and on the Thursday he didn't have school we met friends to play. We stayed busy. We never sat around the house. When I was at home and around the house, it was with just Sam. Babies and Jack are two totally different animals.

In the last TWO mornings he has: painted with paint, constructed a huge fort under the table, asked me to be Handy Manny and fix everything in the house that was broken, played dozens of computer games on Noggin.com, build with blocks, drawn at least fifty drawings, gone on a flower hunt (and wanted to go on it outside alone - as long as no bad guys came), gotten food to feed all the stuffed animals in his room, built a pretend nest for birds, caught rain with a net, made a swimming pool with pillows all over the floor, asked me to spell bunches of words for him to Google, studied his new species of bird book and told me about all the birds, and had a birthday party for his dog "Dolly." These are just in the hours that we have been home today, I had a planned outing both of these days as well. And of course, that list is not even close to all of it.

My question is, HOW DO PEOPLE DO THIS? I mean, how do you have a four year old this active and not have them in school or somewhere to be creative and burn off steam around other KIDS who enjoy these types of games? I know plenty of people who don't start their kids in any kind of "school" til Kindergarten, even have friends who home school. How do you possibly do that and not go nuts? I can only play inside the fort happily for so long. I can only sing at Dolly's birthday party once before I'm bored. I love my kid. He goes about 150 miles an hour when my mornings are used to running at about 30 mph. I like to get stuff DONE in the morning, you know, like dishes?

It is fun to have him home, really. I enjoy watching his mind work. But I already do this daily for a couple hours in the morning, from 12-8 pm and on weekends. So, I will add preschool as something else I am really grateful for. And at his next one is Charleston - run the kid around. Let him pretend all morning. Buy me some time people, so that I can have the patience to participate in all these shenanigans the rest of the time :-)