Saturday, November 26, 2005
Next time, I might try a glass of wine with that whine
Hallelujah, it finally rained yesterday! Just the excuse I needed to stay home and cocoon. Since we'd been away for a couple of days, and with my housekeeper now out on maternity leave, I was consumed with the routine washing, sweeping, wiping, folding, hanging, sorting and straightening, all while trying to knock out the non-tree-related Christmas decorations. Did I mention that Lee was at the office, so there were also two small children to amuse?
By the end of the day, I had an epiphany: keeping kids entertained indoors is all about making messes. Cooking waffles together means powdered sugar footprints on the island and barstools and floors. Making an anachronistic jack-o-lantern on the pumpkin's final voyage to the trash means lots of slimy seeds and squishy pulp. Indulging the kids' adventure on a pirate ship means rearranging the 11 pillows on our bed more times than I can remember. When you're 4 and 2, fun equals mess. I tried to go with the flow.
At moments, though, my housekeeping efforts directly conflicted with the boys' play. I had washed linens and was trying to wrestle the waterproof mattress cover and fitted dinosaur sheet onto Boo's bed when he came into the room and began a ferocious round of whining. I hadn't noticed that someone had commissioned the small ladder that once housed pumpkins on the front porch. It now served as a diving board from which the kids could hurl themselves into the "swimming pool," which had become overrun with prehistoric reptiles.
"Not my bed!," Boo protested, his nasally screech evoking the same feeling within me as fingernails on a chalkboard. "That's my swimming pool!" About a dozen times.
The parenting class I took this fall recommends that parents charge--either toys or money--for listening to whining. But in the moment, I hadn't remembered that approach. Instead, I tried to enhance Boo's self-awareness, with the ridiculous notion that with raised consciousness, he might opt for a sunnier approach.
"Boo, do you remember what that tone of voice is called?"
"No."
"It's called whining."
"No, mommy, it's called sad."
So much for consciousness-raising.
By the end of the day, I had an epiphany: keeping kids entertained indoors is all about making messes. Cooking waffles together means powdered sugar footprints on the island and barstools and floors. Making an anachronistic jack-o-lantern on the pumpkin's final voyage to the trash means lots of slimy seeds and squishy pulp. Indulging the kids' adventure on a pirate ship means rearranging the 11 pillows on our bed more times than I can remember. When you're 4 and 2, fun equals mess. I tried to go with the flow.
At moments, though, my housekeeping efforts directly conflicted with the boys' play. I had washed linens and was trying to wrestle the waterproof mattress cover and fitted dinosaur sheet onto Boo's bed when he came into the room and began a ferocious round of whining. I hadn't noticed that someone had commissioned the small ladder that once housed pumpkins on the front porch. It now served as a diving board from which the kids could hurl themselves into the "swimming pool," which had become overrun with prehistoric reptiles.
"Not my bed!," Boo protested, his nasally screech evoking the same feeling within me as fingernails on a chalkboard. "That's my swimming pool!" About a dozen times.
The parenting class I took this fall recommends that parents charge--either toys or money--for listening to whining. But in the moment, I hadn't remembered that approach. Instead, I tried to enhance Boo's self-awareness, with the ridiculous notion that with raised consciousness, he might opt for a sunnier approach.
"Boo, do you remember what that tone of voice is called?"
"No."
"It's called whining."
"No, mommy, it's called sad."
So much for consciousness-raising.
1 Comments:
No, mommy, it's called sad.
Did that line make you laugh, or did it make you cry? Laughing here, but I don't know if my reaction would've been the same had I been there.
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