Looking after the kids

I've just got back to work after one week looking after my two kids. They are four and nineteen months. It's great to spend quality time with them, but boy is it hard work! I've finally accepted that I can do nothing else when they are around. If I leave them for longer than five minutes, the battle starts: usually one or the other taking the toy or book that their sibling is playing with. I must confess to having stuck them in front of a cartoon while I had a 30- minute telephone lesson with a student. I am also a little disappointed to say, that the addictive power of TV kept them quiet for the full 30 minutes. The danger now is that I will use it again to get some peace while I do something else.
One of the difficulties is that there is so little to do with small kids. Tours of the local duck pond can get tedious. The museums are not adapted to their age, and they are not really ready to hit the ski slopes. We generally take a walk in the morning, followed by lunch and a nap. I suppose I shouldn't complain because nap time can give me two full hours to myself. If they sleep! In the afternoon, we might do some shopping, or another walk, or if the weather is bad some cooking. Generally about 6pm tempers become frayed. I've run out of activities, I want to start preparing dinner, and the kids want mummy. So when my poor wife walks through the door, after a full days work, she is mobbed.
Of course any woman reading this will smile and say, 'Now you see how it is for women!' I have been looking after my kids every Wednesday since my daughter was born in 2004. In France fathers can do this and, as there is no school on Wednesday it saves on child care. Despite the difficulties I am glad I did it and grateful that my work enables me to look after them.