How to use your free time well...

A long time ago, when the European colonists came to America, they landed with an agenda. They named it the “New World” because they were seeking a land to own, to expand upon. When they reached what we now call America, they were thrilled to have found it

Unused land.

Nobody was farming it or building on it, at least not to potential. Nobody was planning it. So the colonists took it upon themselves to educate the Native Americans. They “educated” them on how to use that land more effectively, more efficiently, more completely. Basically, they taught them to multi task, assuming that the slow paced solo tasking they were observing was an error to be fixed. A sign of lower awareness.

It never occurred to them. Maybe this solo tasking was on purpose and held wisdom.

Just maybe they were simply letting it BE land. They danced on it for celebration and sadness. They let their animals feed upon it to thrive. While I’ve never read about it specifically, I can only assume they let their children play upon it in their daily life. It would be consistent.

Today’s society is all about multitasking. We use our smart phones to check our email and text our friend to confirm tomorrow’s plans while food shopping. And then we wonder why we forgot half the items on our list or bought the decaf coffee by accident. We find a few hours of “free” time and we pack it to the brim with our essential “to do” lists, then feel frustrated with ourselves when we don’t complete our totally irrationally lengthy lists.

Yeah, that sounds like wisdom to me. Not. And yet we persevere, creating more and more technology to increase our chances of success. It’s like it has never occurred to us to cut our lists in half or to simply drop our expectations.

And don’t get me wrong. I’m not judging. Ok, maybe I am. But I’m judging myself as well, so I feel a little less judgmental.

The other day, I dropped my kids off at their afternoon preschool, like usual. Normally, this is followed by racing to my car so that I can use my “free” two hours as effectively as possible. I do laundry, clean the house, plan dinner, send a few emails, run errands and make those business calls that I just can’t complete with two kids in the house around my ankles. I even put these lists into my calendar in the absurd hopes that I will complete it.

I know. I’m insane.  But I’m in good company, if that makes it more forgivable.

That day, however, something happened. One of the other moms and I made a passing comment to each other at school drop off and a conversation developed. A really fun conversation, by the way. The daughter of this mom, a wonderful little girl, loves my daughter and my daughter loves her. They run squealing to hug each other when they see each other every day. It’s pretty cute.

And so we chatted. About kids. About life. About men. About shopping. You know… we just chatted. And we both cracked up more than once. Then, I went home and instead of going into my house, I went to my neighbor’s house. She just had a significant surgery and is housebound during the recovery period. I had just received an email from her that she was ready for visitors and that I should stop by whenever.

And so I did. I mentally dropped my VERY IMPORTANT “to do” list and chatted with my neighbor. It was great. By the time I left, she was laughing and I felt a thousand pounds lighter, despite not having been “productive”. My headache even went away. Imagine that.  

The laundry waited, it wasn’t going anywhere. The emails I hadn’t replied to weren’t going to delete themselves in the next 8 hours. Dinner could be a hodgepodge of leftovers and nobody would complain. My neighbor, however, was recovering RIGHT THEN. Not later. And we both needed some good, healthy socialization to feel more human.

Who says I didn’t use my time well? I think I used it perfectly.

The magic of Santa

Just before Halloween, we attended a campfire in our local state park. We arrived just as the sun was beginning to set and drove home in total darkness. The participants took a nature stroll through the woods, followed by a campfire complete with Halloween songs and s’mores. It was enormously fun.

In that moment before darkness settled in, my son looked up into the sky and triumphantly exclaimed, “Mommy, Daddy, I see Rudolph!” 

He was pointing at an airplane, of course. My husband, in his wicked wisdom, has told our twins that airplanes are Rudolph. That he and Santa are watching every move they make. It’s amazing how effectively it stabilizes behavior. The adults in the group cracked up. The children started searching the skies. Priceless moment. 

As an adult, I find it magnificent, this unshaken belief in Santa Clause.  I mean, seriously. The logic is beyond ridiculous. 

Let’s sum it up. Over the course of one night, one guy travels across the entire world and delivers presents to practically every boy and girl. He lands on their roof, slides down the chimney and delivers the exact presents that each and every kid drooled over in the local toy store. 

And his sleigh is only moderately sized, and pulled by reindeer. Oh, and his belly is way too big to fit in a chimney. 

Imagine that…

What is only slightly more insane is that kids believe it. For years. They behave well for fear of losing presents. They gaze adoringly at the random man dressed in a Santa suit at the local gym, or church, or supermarket… and they fail to notice that this one has blue eyes while the one last week was brown eyed.

Or perhaps they just don’t want to notice, because they want to believe and looking at the details will force them to face a reality they aren’t ready to face yet. They want to believe in magic because they are in love with the idea of Santa. They love the romance of flying reindeer and piles of presents. They love the music and the lights on the Christmas tree. They don’t care about logic. They crave magic and will suspend belief to maintain that feeling as long as possible. 

I understand why, because adults do it as well. 

My husband and I watched Avatar recently. We had seen it before, in the theater, but we bought the DVD when it came out. I love that movie, despite the fact that suspended mountains don’t exist. Neither do extra large blue people with reinforced bones, dragons or 6 legged horses. And yet, I love that movie. Watching the soul of a wheelchair bound body get transported into a strong and spirited body makes my heart light up with joy. I am entranced by the floating souls.  I can’t help but smile when the dragons soar through the air and I want to cheer when Jake changes side and takes his “true” form in his avatar body. 

And no, I don’t care that it’s not physically possible. Don’t remind me, ok? 

I just want to enjoy the magic.

Not in the mood...

I picked my kids up from school today, in front of the school as the teachers opened the doors and let the kids out. My son was all smiles. My daughter, however, was pouting. I gave her a hug and asked her what the problem was. 

Her: “I wasn’t in the mood to be the notebook helper”.

Me: “Huh?”

So, I asked her teacher what it meant to be the notebook helper. Apparently, one of the many classroom jobs (the notebook helper) is to hand out the notebooks to the class so they can put them in their backpacks at pack up time. Only in preschool, right? 

And at that moment, I knew what had to happen. So, I looked the teacher right in the eyes, praying that she would see my intent to educate my daughter and not to question her authority. It worked. 

Me: “Teacher, when a student is told to do their job, is it a choice to say no?”

Teacher: (with a smile) “No, it’s their job.” 

Then she looked my daughter directly in the eye. 

Teacher: “Honey. Remember what we talked about? Sometimes we don’t have a…. choice.”

My daughter was unable to speak. She was too busy sticking out her bottom lip and trying not to cry. I made her apologize to her teacher, who graciously accepted her apology and assured her that Monday would be better. We walked to the car. 

My daughter: (Unwilling to lose) “mommy, I wasn’t in the mood!”

And so I started talking…

“Honey, not being in the mood is not a good reason to not do as you are asked. What if mommy wasn’t in the mood to go to the supermarket? How would you feel when your favorite foods weren’t in the kitchen? What if I wasn’t in the mood to do laundry or make dinner? How would you eat and wear clean clothing? What if I wasn’t in the mood to get up and help you when you needed help? How would you feel about my not helping you?”

While she was pouting, she was also clearly listening. So I continued…

“We all have to do things we are not in the mood to do. It’s part of making good choices and being a big kid. When you don’t do what you are supposed to do, it’s not fair to other people. What would your friends do if they didn’t have their notebooks? I’m sorry it makes you sad but it’s not a choice. And I love you.” 

I suppose it’s the right time to have this conversation with a kid. My twins are almost 5 and they are able to understand some basic concepts of responsibility. They can see the consequences of their actions, if the reaction is quick enough to occur in their attention span, and they can see when their choices make people sad or angry. While the conversation above was with my daughter, in relation to her actions, my son struggles with the same lack of follow through on actions that don’t pique his interest. His response isn’t any more responsible than hers. And it doesn’t hurt for him to hear the conversation either. 

I guess it’s all part of growing up, right? Teaching our kids to have tougher skin and to learn how to follow the rules. And better now than later, when the adults have less patience for the learning curve. 

 It’s hard to be a kid.  

Dear Congress...

Dear Congress 

As a mom of two young children, a wife of a government employee and a college educated woman, I wanted to thank you.

I consider my job as parent to be an extremely difficult job, and I endeavor to participate in as much professional development as possible. I follow the news and I talk to my children about their leaders. I have explained to them, on many occasions, that watching your leaders is an excellent way to know right from wrong. 

Recently, my children have learned many valuable lessons from watching you. Let me provide you some examples. 

1-      They have learned that when they don’t agree with somebody, they should stand their ground. To the end. Never negotiate. Regardless of the cost. Thank you for bestowing this lesson on my children. It will serve them well on the playground when their entire class gets grounded for their behavior.  

2-      They have learned that apologizing or stepping back to reevaluate an earlier choice is a sign of weakness and that they should NEVER do so. This is working especially well in their battles with me and their father in the house.

3-      They have learned that communication is important, except when they really care. Oh, and when they know they’re right. Like, when my daughter KNEW that she had been playing with the toy cars before my son entered the room. On that occasion, or occasions like that, she doesn’t have to communicate. Yelling and stomping is significantly more successful.

4-      Blaming your opponent is far more important than understanding and/or fixing the problem. For example, my son successfully spent a significant time crying and whining about how he had been wronged by his sister. At no point did he work on sharing or taking turns. We were quite proud of him. 

Raising my children right is important to me and I sincerely want to thank you for helping me impart these lessons to my children. Without your guidance and representation, I may have mistakenly asked them to communicate or negotiate. They may have shared or apologized, and that would be terrible.

After all, aren’t YOU in the job of representing us and who we strive to be? 

Sincerely,

Lisa Booth

Stay at home mom of two young kids and wife of currently unpaid husband

Joy... and the sharing of small things

My husband and I took our children to a local renaissance festival yesterday. We spent a wonderful day. We watched shows, listened to live music and ate yummy, overpriced food. The weather was beautiful and kid behavior was exceptional. It would be a gross understatement to say that I was pleased. 

One of my favorite parts of the day was the sharing. Busy festivals don’t lend themselves to tremendous personal space. It’s hard to find tables so food is frequently eaten standing and has to be eaten one item at a time, for lack of extra hands. My kids are young enough that their attention spans are short. They drop plates easily at the best of times. 

As a result, we tend to buy our food at festivals in small snacks and graze through the day, sharing all we buy as we go. And I enjoy it enormously. What was born from function has become a wonderful little family ritual. I suspect that we will continue doing so long after the need becomes obsolete. 

Food isn’t the only area where sharing is necessary. Seats can be limited, in general, so people are forced so squish in closer to share inadequate bench space. Walking space is limited so people are required to pay attention to those around them as they move, as to not bump. Lines can be long, so people are required to “share” lines, as they wait their turn. 

As a parent, it is my job to share many things with my children. I share my knowledge and my wisdom. I share life lessons, strength, and morals. I share my opinions on the world, hoping that they will grow in open minded, respectful, intelligent and free thinking adults. You know… the big stuff.

But we also share the small stuff. And I have to tell you, I LOVE sharing the small stuff. I love sharing sodas and ice creams. Especially when there’s only one spoon or straw. I love sharing chairs, even when it means that my butt is half off the chair or my legs are squished under a 40 pound wiggle monster. I don’t love sharing colds, but I do love knowing that I was a source of comfort for my sick kid and the contagion factor was an acceptable occupational hazard. 

I read a lot of articles about parenting. Whether this is a blessing or a curse varies from article to article, and day to day. Sometimes these articles fill me with confidence and/or new information. Other times they fill me with unnecessary doubt. When the topic of sharing comes up in articles, it always takes such a serious vein. Psychologists and other such experts earnestly discuss the ways to educate your child on sharing and how to handle it when they aren’t sharing successfully. They talk about modeling the behaviors you choose your children to emulate. 

But I have never read an article about how much FUN it can be to share. It’s a blast when it works. For dessert, we bought two “cheesecakes on a stick”. Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like. A slice of cheesecake placed on a stick and then dipped gloriously in dark chocolate. It’s heaven on a stick. Divine. I held one and my husband held the other. We each shared with one kid and I shared with my son. I would take a bite, and then hold it out for him to take a bite. He grinned happily then waited patiently while the process repeated. Not once did he grab between turns. The experience was more delicious than the food, if that’s even possible. 

My husband’s experience with our daughter was equally positive. 

During one of the music shows, my daughter clambered into my lap to snuggle. When I leaned in to kiss her, she turned her head towards mine and said “Mommy, I want to kiss you with my nose”. She pressed her little face against mine and giggled. We must have stayed that way for at least 2 minutes. She was the one who pulled back. 

Want to know what I think? I think that if parents are to be educated on how to make their lives easier, we need more resources on how to have fun with our kids. We need to be shaken from our routines and reminded to relax a little.

 Hey, I need that reminder. Don’t you?