The Family “Pile Up” or Floor Sandwich!

I got a terrific e-mail yesterday from Larry Cohen’s Playful Parenting, which is just a great title to me. I guess we say the same thing — laugh with your kids, giggle as much as you can, have fun together. Here’s an idea that came from a mom who wrote him about the joys of “roughhousing” with  her kids, even to turn a trying moment into a gleeful one. The mom invites her kids to make a sandwich on the floor — SHE’s the bread and they pile on as the cheese and mustard! As strange as this seems, this happens in our family, too. Everyone piles on top of my husband when our kids and Feldscher family nieces and nephews get together. He’s “screaming” on the bottom but we get the best pictures and, you can be sure, everyone is laughing, even my husband!

In Playful Parenting, Larry wrote … A mom used some play to help her oldest child, age 6, who had been a bit of a “monster” lately. She said  “So, I recently pulled out one of our favorite games that has always helped my middle child. This time, I was hoping to turn around my 6 year old, and it worked like a charm. I just lay down on the floor and say, ‘I’m the bread. Who wants to be the cheese?’ and one child will run over to lay on top of me. I give that kid a great big squeeze, which really seems to help him feel loved and snap him out of a bad mood. Then the other one will run over and be the mustard (or whatever) and lay on top. Now I’m squeezing two kids and the one in the middle is getting a good squeeze. I have to help them take turns being the one closest to me. But the baby doesn’t care! She will just pile on top of her brothers and seems to feel like she’s ‘winning’ just because she’s playing too and gets to body slam her brothers.”