Learner's Block?

Is there such a thing as learner's block? If there is, I feel like my family has a very bad case of it right now. Maybe it’s the cold weather/snow we’ve had recently that’s kept us cooped up in the house (we live in a 900 sq ft apartment, being in the house for consecutive days is enough to drive anyone crazy). Maybe it’s that Sponge has been sick. Maybe it’s that Aaron has been spending a lot of time doing school work to gear up for finals. Maybe it’s because we’ve been swamped with apartment complex business. Or maybe it’s some combination of all of the above. I don’t know. But we’re stuck.

Scientist and Sponge are still really young, so we don’t have a “curriculum” that we follow with them. But we do try to include learning into our everyday routine. Reading stories together tops our list of most popular educational activities; at least until recently. And maybe this is what’s frustrating me the most, and why I feel like we aren’t getting anywhere. Scientist has decided to assert his two year old independence and now insists that HE be the one to read when we do stories. He wants to read, fantastic! Only one problem…he can’t. Which results in the three of us sitting somewhere, with Scientist holding the book turning random pages in any order, and me trying frantically to remember the story, even though I can’t see the page to read it, and all of us getting frustrated, bored, or both within minutes and story time coming to an abrupt halt. We’re having similar experiences with coloring, play dough, and singing songs.

My more optimistic self tells me that this is just a cycle. That at some point things will pick up again, or something new will come along. While I “wait it out”, I’m keeping my eyes open for new activities, or a twist on some of our old activities. Something. Any ideas?