I'm Bored!

If I hear the words "I'm bored" one more time this summer I am going to scream. Especially if I have just spent a few hours and money spending time entertaining my kids. Since when do you have to be entertained every second of the day? And why is it up to me to figure out that for them?
The other day my nine year old daughter has a friend over and they have only been here for a short while and ask if they can go back over to the friends home. Curious, I ask them why they don't want to stay at our home. They both are very vague and tell me "it's a lot of different reasons."
Eventually the friend goes home so I ask my daughter why they didn't want to play here. She tells me that we just don't have anything fun here to do like her friends have. They have pools, trampolines, video games. "It's just kind of boring here" she says. I am a little taken back by this. Have you seen how many freakin' toys we have. Yeah maybe our toys are geared toward a younger age and my daughter is reaching that tween stage. But give me a break. I offer her some ideas of some creative things she could do... Such as make up dances, do crafts, bake, do their nails. I tell her how I didn't have dish network and video games when I was younger and I found things to do. She replies by saying "Well things are different now mom." All of a sudden I felt like this out of touch old mom that just didn't understand. Wait a minute! My daughter is only nine. Have I let the Disney channel and other children wastelands get to my child? Can they not use their brains to entertain themselves? Or is peer pressure already happening and her friends who have to be entertained 24/7 getting to her? What happen to the days when you raced popsicle sticks down the street gutter and could walk to 7/11 for a slurpee and then top it off with a little price is right? That would be a full day for me.
Actually my daughter has always wanted to be on the go since she came out of the womb. It just hasn't required big expensive toys to do it.
So of course I take her comments of our home being boring very personally. What mom wants to have the "un-cool" home. Then I start to think I have gone wrong somewhere raising my child. She should be content with everything I try to give her. Right!? I feel I try hard to be a mom who teaches my children responsibility and that not all their wishes and wants will be fulfilled. But I also try to be a mother who is fun and playful with her children and also helps to provide fun, happy experiences in their lives. But it just never seems to be enough.
I feel like I am a activity cruise director, Like Julie on the love boat. I am asked every morning and every night what the activities will be for the day. And if all I have scheduled is a load of laundry ,and that is all I have the energy for, well then I will have a boat full of unhappy whinny passengers.
Part of me wants to satisfy everyone and make sure they are having fun and are happy. I worry when they go back to school they won't have anything exciting to say about their summer. But more importantly I want them to want to play at our own home. I don't want my children always playing at other peoples homes.
And then another part of me wants to say (and sometimes does) "If you don't like the activities on this cruise ship than to bad the trip is non refundable!" Or I just want to send them to another ship all together.
I guess my biggest fear is having my children turn out like Veruca on Charlie and the chocolate factory. "I want a golden egg right now daddy!!!!" I can not stand when my children act ungrateful. Or don't notice all that they already have. How do I instill the quality of gratitude in my children? I thought I was
trying to do this but I'm not to sure it is working.
I suddenly am having a memory of a girl I lived across the street from when I was little. She had every Barbie known to man and all the accessories that went with them. She would invite me over sometimes to play with them. I remember coming home after playing with her, to my little set of Sunshine Family Dolls. Kind of a toned down generic barbie. When you squeezed their heads their eyes could pop out. After playing with her barbies my family of partially eyeless dolls had lost their appeal. I don't remember but I'm sure I begged my mom for things I didn't have. I'm sure i told her that everyone else had them accept me. I don't remember her response but I'm sure she said something like "Well if I see it on sale maybe I will get is for your birthday."
So maybe my nine year old isn't that bad. Maybe she is just like her mother but just wanting different toys. Maybe we all have a little veruca in us sometimes. Or the case of the "grass is always greener." I'm sure I look at the people around me and think their toys ie. clothes, cars, home, were better than mine.
If this behavior is normal how do you stop the whining and pouting that goes with it. Has anyone figured out a way around that one?

Three Babes and a Raft

So we just got back from spending several days at Lake Oroville. I was doing well not to sunburn to bad until the very last day. Which I feel is a big defeat seeing that I am not only responsible for lathering up myself with sunscreen but three other little bodies.
We went with my sister and her family along with a couple other families. We basically hung out on the lake all day. It was fun and somewhat relaxing with all the kids. Definantly some good memories.
I'm not much of a skier but I did go on this taco type tube with my sister Jenny and my friend Tammy. The video has not been released for public viewing yet but the whole thing was caught on tape.
Sandwiched in the middle, I white nuckled the handles on the raft. Thing were going okay until Tammy's husband, Mark, decided to drive his boat around ours and make huge wave. So as we are being whipped around the wake we encounter these waves and are tossed off the raft. Actually I'm not sure how but Jenny managed to stay on.
So we swim to the raft and gracefully climb on the raft, NOT! Which again is being filmed. Tammy and I decided we will put the song "I like big butts and I can not lie!" As one of the soundtracks for our video.
We three decide we want to go on the raft some more. We obviously drank way beyond our Diet Pepsi limit and are not making wise decisions.
So we start off and forgetting we are at the end of a rope connected to his boat, Paul (Jenny's Husband), decides he wants to catch up with Mark and go around his boat to make some "payback" waves. So we go flying around his boat and Paul realizes that we are going way too fast and slows down. We are going up and down on some big waves and end up head to head with Mark's boat. But instead of aborting the little raft we three decided to use the raft to protect us from the boat. We succeeded in pushing ourselves away from the boat and tipping over into the water.
I don't think I have laughed so hard in a very long time. I think I need to laugh like that at least once a week. It was the best therapy. The conversation between the three of us on the raft was equally entertaining but must be kept private. "What is said on the raft stays on the raft." Something about coin slots and butt snaps. Like I said "Way too much diet Pepsi".