Caring for two children on my own while living in a hotel in a city I'm not familiar with and on a budget requires one to become creative. What this boils down to is the reality that there isn't too much space in our hotel room. The majority of the children's toys are packed until that time when we will move no more. That means for at least the duration of our time in the hotel the toys are unavailable for my kids to play with and potentially inevitably get lost. Since this is a foreign city to me, I'm not confident enough to drag two children around the streets in search of a park for them to play on. I stick with what I know when I have my two children in tow.
Entertaining two children required an iced caramel macchiato for me to keep up with them and to not lose my patience. Unfortunately the Starbucks here in Hong Kong do not offer my drink of choice {a white chocolate mocha}, but those 240 calories of espresso and steamed milk in the caramel macchiato work their wonders on me.
Man do I miss my husband when he's at work, and I have complete empathy for all you single parents out there. Kudos to you. If I had the resources I'd treat you all to an iced caramel macchiato as well, but alas, I happen to be on a budget.
While my husband was at work, I found myself coming up with creative activities for the children to do to pass away the time until I'd have my partner back with us. I took the kids to visit the pet shops down the street. They didn't know what we were going to go see, they just knew they were in for a surprise. The key was to let them know we were just looking - we were not purchasing any animals. We swam in the hotel pool which is located on the roof in the heat of the day. I sat in the shade and supervised from my lawn chair. We rode around Hong Kong on the complimentary hotel shuttle bus just to kill an hour. I turned the directory of the hotel into a scavenger hunt. We went up to each floor to find every landmark noted on the directory. And then I pulled the black out drapes in our hotel room and made the kids take a nap. I needed the break just as much as they did.
While my husband was at work, I found myself coming up with creative activities for the children to do to pass away the time until I'd have my partner back with us. I took the kids to visit the pet shops down the street. They didn't know what we were going to go see, they just knew they were in for a surprise. The key was to let them know we were just looking - we were not purchasing any animals. We swam in the hotel pool which is located on the roof in the heat of the day. I sat in the shade and supervised from my lawn chair. We rode around Hong Kong on the complimentary hotel shuttle bus just to kill an hour. I turned the directory of the hotel into a scavenger hunt. We went up to each floor to find every landmark noted on the directory. And then I pulled the black out drapes in our hotel room and made the kids take a nap. I needed the break just as much as they did.
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