One of the things you get good at as a parent of a child with special needs is multitasking. You have to. You're a caretaker and a case manager, an advisor and an advocate, a learning specialist and a therapist and a nutritionist all rolled into one.

More often than not you're a primary playmate, too, as developmental differences or prolonged illnesses or appointment schedules take your child out of the friendship mainstream. If your child needs a lot of interaction to get his or her play on, that's a time-consuming job that may often fall to the bottom of the priority list.

Still, don't give up: While it may seem that you don't have time to play with your child at all, much less to the degree he or she needs to be played with, you may be missing some chances to bring playfulness to time that's being killed anyway. Take advantage of these five random play places:

1. Waiting Rooms. Goodness knows, you spend enough time in them. And it's tempting to bury yourself in an out-of-date magazine while your child rambles about aimlessly, sneezing on people. But this is forced, unbroken together time, and you might as well use it. If there are toys in the waiting room, get down on the floor with your child and play with them. If you've brought toys, don't just dump them for your child to play with, but play with them together. Bring a small set of dishes for a spot of pretend tea, or a soft ball for a game of catch (see if beaning the receptionist with the occasional stray pitch gets you inside any faster).

2. Examining Rooms. These are a lot less fun, since they're often cold and sparsely furnished and your child is often cranky and sparsely dressed. All the better to get some distracting interaction going. Play a game of I Spy with items in the room or outside the window. Help your child do an improvised exam on a stuffed animal. Have a conversation on a play phone, asking where oh where that doctor is. Blow up a balloon to bat about together, or have a diving competition to see which doll can make the most spectacular leap off the examining table and onto the (probably germ-riddled; don't think about it) floor.

3. Moving Cars. You're limited in terms of physical interaction while you're driving your child endless places, but that makes it the ideal environment for word games and silliness. Games in which you and your captive kiddos string along long stories or think up Twenty Questions pass the time nicely on long road trips or fast-food drive-through lines. Or sing some silly songs together, and enjoy the way the people in the next lane look at you funny. Never mind: You're playing and you're reinforcing speech skills.

4. Restaurants. Tuck a pair of dice and a deck of cards in your bag of tricks, and you'll be full of learning-enriched play-time possibilities while you wait for food to arrive. Have kids add or subtract or multiply or whatever their current skill dictates for the two numbers that turn up on the rolled dice -- even naming the numbers will do. Give two kids a die each and make a contest of who gets the higher number. With the cards, you're not going to want to deal out a hand of Hearts or anything, but you can play a tidy game of War or do the same sort of math tricks as you did with the dice. The food will be there faster if you keep busy.

5. Parked Cars. Chances are, if you take your child to a restaurant or a church service or a party, you're going to wind up taking that child out of there at some point while other family members are still engaged. Rather than letting that sequestered period feel like punishment for the both of you, use the time for play. Take a walk together and notice license plates in the parking lot. Take a pretend car trip with your child driving. Crawl around all of the car's various seats, front to back. "Read" through the car manual together. Drive toy cars around the inside of the real car. Keep a big blanket on hand so you can make an in-car "fort." Have some fun instead of frustration.

The more you make playtime out of downtime, the more opportunities you may find. Play ball while waiting for the morning bus. Have a shaving-cream fight at bathtime. Make your child into a burrito before bed. The possibilities are endless, and messy, and silly, and odd. But besides being multitaskers, we're experts at making do with what we've got.

Look for more ideas on kids and play on the About.com Parenting Channel's Blog Carnival, coming May 1 to the Family Computing site.