Togetherness August 14, 2007

When your children have free time between school, sports, camps & social engagements and you are helpless to do much of anything but go along with their childish whims, you learn things.  If you’re lucky, you learn that when you adopt a positive attitude, putting aside your wants, desires & what needs to be done & live entirely in the moment, your child can be … fun.
You’ll realize, quickly, that most of your annoyance (which is likely just your own pent up hostilities, because let’s face it, you have issues) stems not from your children’s actions per se but that their actions generally run exactly parallel to whatever you need them to do.  The timeline of a kid is not harmonized in the slightest with the timeline of reality.  For instance, you could say to your child, “Time to get your bath!” and said child will reply, “Yes, but first I have to do [blah]“- blah being “put my Littlest Pets to bed” or “tell you a long-drawn-out story about the dream I had last night — that, by the way — was waaay crazier than any dream you’ve ever dreamt, Mommy” or “finish this episode of Spongebob that I could plausibly quote to you verbatim.” or “show you the dance I just learned AND additionally, I’d like to demonstrate for you how every other girl on the team does it – individually.”  I’m pretty sure that there is a direct correlation between the request and the expediting of said request that directly affects the annoyance of the parent.  Actually, yeah, I’m sure.
But when you have no agenda, no where to go, and nothing in particular to do that can’t wait until another time you’ll see that their action-packed brain is not without its entertainment value people. You can, say, spend an hour on the computer shopping for furniture & clothing for Webkinz [because dogs need flip-flops & big screen TV's] and play a round of HORSE basketball [can be abbreviated to PIG if it's over 90 degrees outside].  You can sit on your daughter’s bed & listen to her new favorite band - even if you argue that the lead singer has a mullet – which will spark additional equally important conversation that some day you’ll both look back fondly on & share additional moments laughing about together – because she defended the mullet.  You can find the hidden pictures at Highlights.com, whose difficulty is grossly understated and dancing wildly & exaggeratedly around the living room to John Mayer is not out of the question either.  This, my friends, is living.
Of course, you can do all this knowing that they’ll be back at school in just a few short weeks.  This helps too.