What To Do When You've Got a Whole Family Holed up in the House?

With Irene making her way up the coast, those of us here know that whether she is a full-fledged hurricane or a tropical storm, we've got at least a day or two of heavy rain ahead with all of us stuck inside.

As a kid during Hurricane Bob 20 years ago, along with watching giant trees fall to the ground like twigs, my memories include hours of crosswords and cribbage, followed by two weeks without power—which meant even more crosswords and cribbage. It is my opinion that hurricane preparedness should include some options for what to do to keep your kids from going mad with boredom.

My trip out today to get bottles of water and some candles also included stocking up on a few new activities for the kids. My older girls went for some new craft supplies and I added a deck of cards to that purchase, just in case someone is up for cribbage. I splurged on a puzzle and a new box of crayons for the little one and then it was then off to the library to check out a stack of books for everyone, as well as a few DVDs to watch—at least until the power goes out.

If you've got kids who are either a little nervous about the whole thing or who really love to help out, FEMA has a great website called Ready Kids. Here they can create a readiness kit, make a plan and graduate from Readiness U. They can even download and print out activities to use later (when going online is impossible) like coloring pages, comic strips and, you guessed it, crosswords.

As always, there's not a parent out there who won't take and give good advice, so let us know what you're going to do with that pack of little ones until it's safe to put them in their ponchos and send them out to jump in the puddles.