Whether you're awaiting dinner at your favorite restaurant or your turn at the doctor's office, try our readers' favorite strategies for fending off the fidgets during unexpected delays.
EATERY ACTIVITIES
Put these activities on the menu next time your family is waiting for food to arrive.
Restaurant Menu Challenge: Create a Word
As a writer, Debbie Swanson of Westford, Massachusetts, has always been fascinated by language. So in restaurants she picks an interesting item on the menu and challenges her family to see how many new words they can make from the letters in the dish's name. When her kids were younger, she chose smaller words. And, she says, "We didn't get too hung up on spelling things perfectly -- phonetically was fine." Nowadays, the game often turns into a spirited competition, with her kids vying to come up with the longest list.
Restaurant Memory Game: Guess What's Missing
The Infantis of Germantown, Maryland, keep everyone entertained at restaurants by playing a tabletop memory game. They take turns lining up a sampling of whatever's handy (jellies, sugar packets, silverware, and the like), then one player covers his eyes and the others secretly remove two or three items. The guesser then takes a look and tries to figure out what's gone missing. Younger kids get fewer items to remember, older kids get more. For an extra challenge, says mom Dawn, "there might not be anything missing. My son's a little devious that way -- anything to trick you!"
