What Should Kids Do
The other night Barry and I were sitting out in our backyard as the girls played together nearby. They had finally hit their rhythm where it’s a fine balance of Maggie bossing and Audrey being a bit goofy/wild. They were having a ball, and giving us adults a few minutes to talk without interruption, a miracle. While we watched them Barry turned to me and says, “I love this, I think they’re doing exactly what kids should be doing.”
It as so true, and it’s a fight I have internally often, asking the question about providing things to ‘do’ for my kids/playing with them/entertaining them/allowing any screen time. And while watching them play, it looked like they weren’t really doing anything, just playing and interacting with each other, but they were doing something. With their bossing and giggling, they were skill building, relationship building, and hopefully building bricks that will lay a strong foundation to carry them through life.
We’ve got lots of activities (painting, chalk, bikes, blah, blah, blah), and we’re attempting to explore the PNW this year in a more aggressive way than we have in the past few summers, but really the girls most like to play together with objects that you can’t necessarily find in a toy store. We aren’t doing much this summer, lots of trips to A-Town, lots of play time in our backyard, letting our kids do what kids should do….play.
P.S. Head over to I Carry Your Heart for a new batch of images!!
I’m Going To Miss That Sound
Oi. The sixth of July. I’m marking it on my calendar for future reference:
IT’S THE SIXTH OF JULY THAT AUDREY BECOMES EXTRA WHINY BECAUSE SHE HASN’T SLEPT IN 19 DAYS FROM ALL THE FIREWORKS AND HOOPLA.
There. Marked and ready for next year.
But, still.
Oi.
We had the most fantastic type of weekend. One where we went to a lake, a birthday party and threw all sense of parenting out the window and let our kids stay up until 11:30 p.m.
11:30 p.m. (you read that right)
And then today, Monday, they day we had to all return to reality and get some shit done showed up. I’m not going to lie, today was a challenge…..and I went to bed at the same as the girls did last night, so I can’t complain of lack of sleep.
As Mondays go, we needed to get some chores done and I was out of some cleaning supplies, so we headed to the store to *quickly* pick them up. But since today is the 6th of July, and Audrey had had it UP TO HERE in the world of 2 year olds, she decided to throw down the biggest shit-fit in the middle of the store. Like screaming and running away from me at top speed. Maggie, who knew that I wouldn’t’ tolerate the screaming/running business, stood by and watched it go down….she’s slightly empathetic, but I think mostly because she’s happy to NOT be the one throwing the shit-fit.
I worked up a sweat, gathered my new cleaning supplies and hauled ourselves to the front of the store after I captured Little Miss Complains A Lot two aisles over with her fingers wrapped around a stuffed monkey. Since I had been listening to the complaining, yelling, and crying all morning, I found myself saying things like, “Please stop crying, it’s rude” and “You can either choose to stay on the floor or come with me….but I’m moving up in the line” as I scooted closer to the cashier, without too much sympathy.
Meanwhile, most of the old people in the store were looking at us sideways and I felt as if I had suddenly grown another head. I just smiled at them because what else could I do. I needed to get my chores done and we were in line to leave. I don’t think it lasted too long because Audrey found some toy to squeeze and Maggie found a coupon for a free cookie, but before I was able to take a breath without feeling like a complete asshole-parent, the woman in front of me turned around and said, “I miss that sound.”
Since I’m hard of hearing, not a joke, I wondered if perhaps there was something that I wasn’t hearing that she was referencing. I smiled at her and inquired as to what sound she was talking about. She then went on to talk to me about how as a mother with grown children, she actually misses the sound of her kids whining. Of course, she said, that she also missed all the things in between, the sweet stuff, but the sound of her kids crying/whining and carrying on is a sound that she missed. I might have looked at her like she’d just grown another head.
Since that exact sound had been the soundtrack to my morning, it caught me off guard, her comment. But after only a beat, a split second really, I suddenly could feel my heart inside of my throat and my eyes brim with a smattering of tears. Some day I know I’ll miss the sound of a shit-fit in the middle of a store. Right now, I get to be the one to help my child work through those strong, hard emotions. I’ll miss that the problem might be able to be solved with some extra cuddles or hours of sleep.
But until then, until I get far enough away in the world of parenting from the shit-fit, public screaming child that I intentionally brought into a store, I’m marking my calendar and I’m going to prepare myself.
Side note: Since I thrive on funny things, read these tweets, they’ll brighten your day a bit. Shit-fit or not, we all need to laugh.