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Up Activities for Down Days
By Rebecca Moore
Pediatric Network News, February 2004
In February and March, it seems so many of us are fighting the winter doldrums and waiting for spring. Many of our members have felt more ill than usual lately, which makes it harder to find fun ways to pass the time. We’d like to hear from you about your tricks and tips for enjoying the day, even when your energy is low or pain level is high. We know you have some great ideas and look forward to sharing them in each issue of the newsletter.
Here are some tips to get you started.
Cook up some fun:
- Look for breads or cookies that you can put together easily, so that if you or your child is tired, you won’t get frustrated with a multi-step recipe.
- Make Jell-O cut-outs. This is a quick project that you can adapt with cookie cutters for seasonal or holiday themes.
- If you have food allergies and are looking for a cozy winter recipe that can easily be adapted, try Brown Bears in the Apple Orchard. You layer gingerbread mix over hot applesauce and bake it, so that the end result is a 3-layer
casserole with applesauce on the bottom, applesauce-cake in the middle, and gingerbread cake
on top.
My mom learned this recipe as a girl scout. For years we only ate it when camping (It’s great when baked in a dutch oven over the fire) but in recent years I’ve adapted it for my gluten-free, dairy-free diet and made it in the kitchen.
Here are the general instructions, which you can adapt as need be!
Heat around a quart of applesauce to boiling in a pot on a stove. Meanwhile, prepare either a standard or gluten-free package of gingerbread mix, adding ingredients to make the batter as instructed. If you need a good gluten-free mix, try
The Gluten Free Pantry’s Spice Cake and Gingerbread Mix. You can easily prepare this with rice milk if you are milk allergic.
Oil the inside of a dutch oven or your largest casserole dish and pour the hot applesauce into it. Then, spoon or pour the gingerbread batter on top. Cover tightly with a lid or foil. Bake in the oven, using the temperature recommended for the gingerbread mix. Expect it to take
at least 1-1.5 hours, depending on the amount of applesauce and gingerbread mix and the width of the pan you use. Keep the dish tightly covered and check it periodically starting at the one-hour point to avoid burning. When finished, you will have a yummy dessert casserole.
Serve it in bowls while it is still warm and eat it with a spoon.
- Here’s another food allergy friendly dessert: Banana “Ice Cream.” To prepare it, you’ll need to cut
ripe bananas into chunks, place them in a plastic bag, and freeze them at least overnight. About 10 minutes before you’re ready to have dessert, place frozen banana pieces in a food processor. You’ll need to process them, stop to stir the best mixed banana up from the bottom of the processor, resume processing, and repeat this sequence for a while. At first it will look like you’re just going to get an unattractive banana mush, but once the banana is processed and thawed just enough, it will suddenly begin to be aerated in the processor. Its color will lighten and the texture will become more airy, as it turns into banana sorbet.
My favorite way to serve banana “ice cream” is to top it with toasted walnuts and coconut. I break up walnuts into small pieces and toast them in a frying pan, and then add unsweetened
coconut (available at most health food stores), stirring and toasting until the coconut is a golden brown.
Sources of Entertainment:
- Order books on tape from Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic.
There’s a one-time registration fee of $50, plus a $25 membership fee per year. You may request to borrow free books on tape, though you are responsible for the shipping costs.
You’ll also find a number of children’s books on tape or CD on Amazon.com. We’ve linked to some of them in the
Gift Section of our
Store. When you go to Amazon.com
through a link on our site and make a purchase, a small portion of the sales
price is returned to the Pediatric Network to support our work.
- Try NetFlix, which allows you to create a “wish list” of DVDs and borrow them through the mail, without late fees.
Get Crafty:
- Play with unscented clay. You can sculpt your mood, your pain, your joys—it can be calming and comforting. Another option is to buy beeswax, which you warm with your hands and then sculpt.
- Buy dry erase boards with unscented markers. The pen flows across the surface easily and you can
draw your moods. It can be a real release.
- Make collages. These are a fun way to illustrate how you view yourself or your situation, the goals you dream of, a favorite place to vacation or play, or other images important to you. If you have a good bed tray for craft time, you can set yourself up with a stack of magazines and happily cut out any image or word that appeals to you. Look for pages with large images and background scenes that you can use to fill up space in your collage. Then, set aside the magazines, organize your image clips, and use construction paper and a glue stick to put together your collage.
- Divide some houseplants and keep the “baby” plants in your bedroom, so you have new life to care for. Or, start some flower seeds in your room, so you’ll have a rapidly-changing project to check on and care for every day.
What helps you pass the time? Share your “up activities for down days” with us and we’ll include some of them in future issues of the newsletter!
You can send them to rebecca@pediatricnetwork.org.
 Related
Articles on the Internet:
My inspiration for this newsletter feature is Jenn Waterman's Coping Corner
column, which featured positive, humorous,
and touching suggestions about including FUN in life with CFIDS/CFS. It was
published in Youth Allied By CFIDS, the newsletter of The CFIDS
Association of America's youth program, years ago. I encourage you to read her
columns online at The
Coping Corner Archive.
View the Pediatric Network News Archive
Return to the Youth Voices Page
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