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Monday, June 12, 2017 | 2 a.m.
As parents try to figure out how to keep their children out of trouble during the summer break, it seems like a perfect time to suggest ways to occupy not only local students but another child — the easily bored and distracted one who works in the Oval Office.
• Water-bottle bowling
Parents: Set up 10 empty water bottles like tenpins at a bowling alley, then let kids knock them down using a soccer ball.
Trump aides: Add to the president’s delight — and perhaps head off another humiliating Twitter storm — by decorating each bottle with an image of a person or entity with whom Trump has had a pointless and embarrassing public feud, like Rosie O’Donnell, Alec Baldwin, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Snoop Dogg and NBA team owner Mark Cuban.
• Scavenger hunt
Parents: Hide various objects inside and outside, then give kids a map of the objects or clues to their location. First one to locate all of the items wins.
Trump aides: This one is easy. Just tell the president that leakers or fraudulent voters are hiding in the bushes and trees on the White House lawn. He’ll be out there for days.
• Fun with bubble wrap
Parents: Cut out letters from bubble wrap and have kids “pop” the alphabet in sequence.
Trump aides: Arrange bubble-wrap letters into words for Trump to pop, which would not only divert him from doing something dangerous but might help expand his notoriously lousy vocabulary.
• Lawn art
Parents: Lay an old sheet in the grass and allow children to paint on it with brushes, or using their hands and feet.
Trump aides: On the sheet, draw silhouettes of some people Trump has fawned over — Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Rodrigo Duterte, etc. — and let the president paint them in.
• Costume party
Parents: Who says you can only dress up on Halloween?
Trump aides: Break out various uniforms and outfits to allow the president to indulge his delusions of grandeur. Included: the surgeon general (“In a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care.”), energy/environmental scientist (“I know more about renewables than any human being on Earth.”), civil engineer (“Nobody in the history of this country has ever known so much about infrastructure as Donald Trump.”), five-star general (“I know more about ISIS than the generals.”).
• Frozen treat
Parents: Create homemade ice cream sandwiches by baking cookies and spreading ice cream between them.
Trump aides: Same as above. Trump gets two for everybody else’s one, though.
• Cardboard playground
Parents: Using patterns available for free on the internet, turn cardboard boxes into playhouses, cars, castles and more.
Trump aides: Allow Trump to display his expertise in naval technology by inviting him to build a cardboard-box aircraft carrier, with the outdated steam-powered catapult system he wants the U.S. Navy to revert to.
• Summer camp
Parents: From day camps to traditional wilderness camps, there are numerous options that are fun for the kids and provide a break for parents.
Trump aides: Whether it’s Camp David, Mar-A-Lago or Trump’s New Jersey property, tell him to spend a few months there and let the adults take care of running the country.
• Creative learning
Parents: Choose from a number of coloring books that educate kids on such topics as geography, nature and grammar while entertaining them.
Trump aides: Load up on coloring books about American history. Given Trump’s stunningly weak grasp of the subject and his allergy to books containing more than about 200 words, this is a good way to prevent another Frederick Douglass or “why was there a Civil War?” moment.
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