How do you spend time with your young children?

[Jahan]

I love my children but I've never really been into children. I care for them greatly and they are well looked after but I've realised that they're growing up fast (5yrs and 3yrs) and I hardly spend any time with them.
I take them out and we have fun but at home I'd rather be doing something else or I prioritise chores. I don't naturally enjoy time with children and find it all tedious and frustrating (please don't shoot me. Its just how I feel)
I know I'll regret it when they're older but I need to learn how to do this.
I want to aim to do one thing with them a day where I just focus on them.
Could someone please give me some tips and ideas of what I should do and how to go about this?

colditz, I used to do that . Pillow on floor for my head and I'd have a 5 minute nap while DS played around me.

I think it helps when a) you're not knackered all the time (we are currently having a vvvvveerrrry long run of bad nights and I am constantly shattered) and b) you only have one so can concentrate on them and play that is appropriate for their age.

Very soon I will be at home all day just with dd2. dd1 in Reception and we're moving to a place where, as of yet, I don't have a preschool place for dd2. So on the one hand I am looking forward to just being able to concentrate on dd2 and her needs. But on the other I am dreading having her at home ALL THE TIME.

I guess we'll just have to get out a lot, visit friends, soft play etc. She can also come to the supermarket with me.

Thanks Knitpicker .... sounds just the thing my DS would love.I will give it ago.

OMG at dikker???

Your DD is being brought up on the set of Bluepeter..

You have lots of energy/patience/creative thinking - witch woman

I remember wistfully when I just had DS.

I had so much more time and energy (and a thyroid) to play with him and it was much more fun, although i'd chanel my energy's into groups, library stuff and swimming etc (being at home still made me twitch).

With two at different ages time is taken up more by the demands of a one year old trying to eat electrics and get into the Guiness book of records for the most knocks to the head and tantrums and a 3.5 yr old who is talking me into a straight jacket.

Glue and scissors

Oh lol at colditz and pipra ME TOO.

I've seen many an afternoon when ive put a DVD on for DS while DD sleeps and Im awoken with a digger rolling up my side .

lol, ref the geek! post :o

Its really reassuring to know I'm not alone.
It seems to me that most of my friends all spend lots of quality time with their children and I'm the only one who'll happily ignore them for hours.(not literally, of course)

The mountain road mummy game sounds fun

My sons share a room so after ds2 had gone to sleep, I got ds1 into my bed and we snuggled down while I read The Magic Finger to him. He absolutely loved it and wanted me to finish the whole book. We also just generally chatted and larked around
Ds2 wasn't feeling very well today so he just watched tv for most of the day.

I usually find that I'm surprised by the things which they think up themselves and then really get engrossed in. Yesterday dd (5) spent ages with several old egg boxes and chocolate boxes (with compartments in them) and a bag of walnuts, putting a walnut into each compartment??? - I'd have expected it from ds (nearly 2) but dd did it for ages. Then she got herself an empty fruit juice carton with a small screw bottle-top like lid and a funnel and spent about another half hour pushing wheat corns (which we had for feeding the chickens at the local farm) through the funnel into the fruit juice carton.
She just suddenly thought of it and started doing it - she did complain to me after about half an hour that it was taking ages because the funnel was so narrow she had to push all the corns through with a skewer! Bless her! Once she'd decided she was finished, she poured them all straight out again and that was that!