When They Ask, Try Saying, "Yes!"
I have always totally sucked at "playing" with my kids. I am fully aware of this downfall in my parenting and have lamented over it with other Moms I know who are in the same predicament. If you don't know what I am talking about, worry not, I will enlighten you.
My husband has no qualms about sitting down to build Lego's for hours on end, if that is what the kids are doing. He will help them figure out all of their engineering challenges and will come up with new characters and better ways of building things, all in the name of playing. He has always done this whether it was designing train tracks, making the tallest tower out of wooden blocks or coming up with comical conversations between Barbie and Ken. He has set up more "used car lots" and logged many more hours of pretending to eat plastic food at the "restaurant" than most parents I know and definitely kicks my butt in hours of playtime by zillions. In fact, while I am writing this I overheard Callie asking if he'd like to play a round of Uno and his immediate response was, "yes." He shows me up all day long in the field of playing.
I am playing deficient and I openly admit that it just isn't that enjoyable for me. It's not that I don't like playing so much, it is the whole sitting down and doing "nothing productive" when I've got a bunch of crap I need to be doing. As you may notice there are a few things wrong with this statement, beginning with "playing is just sitting down and doing nothing productive." Clearly, I don't actually feel that way about playing, or do I? If you are in my head, you know that I don't think playing is a waste of time. If you aren't in my head, which no one actually is in there, than my actions say something completely different about my opinion of playing. My actions are the exact things I am trying to work on to have a happier and more balanced life.
Take the typical scenario, Henry asks me to build with Legos, so I journey upstairs to start building, something I am terrible at doing, and a few minutes in I hear the buzz of the dryer. While Henry is busy and occupied, I excuse myself to, "go fold this load really quick." I fold, I start the next load, I put away the clothes and then I see that we are close to having to start dinner so I take out some meat from the freezer. The dog starts pacing near her food bowl because it's dinner time for her so I feed her, notice the trash is full so I take it out. When I come back in she is at the back door to go out and then I gotta replace the garbage bag and I go ahead and wipe down the counters and do the few dishes in the sink so it's all clean and ready for when I make dinner later. In this time, the washing machine finishes so I go ahead and toss that load into the dryer and put another in and I am really knocking things off the to do list now! Meanwhile, Henry is still building and I have forgotten that I began the whole exchange with a request from him to join in the building, yet I've built nothing at all and my, "let me go fold that really quick" has turned into 45 minutes of chores and abandoning my son. He of course understands, but how many times can I do this until he just stops asking me to play?
That is my typical faux pas with playing and I am a multiple time offender. I sit down to play with the best intentions, but duty calls and the kids seem occupied so I take off to do one of the many "things" on my list and they just accept that and move on...until they don't anymore.
Actions speak louder than words as we all know, and my actions say that I believe playing is a waste of precious time. My words and my heart believe differently though and I think playing is actually one of the most valuable forms of learning there is. How I act though, well it can use some work if how I feel isn't being portrayed at all.
That brings me to the title of this post. For the past week I have said, "Yes" and meant it. I have left laundry on the bed and played Guess Who, Uno and Connect Four. I have worked puzzles, helped organize drawers, watched silly shows and colored in coloring books. I have said, "yes" each time I was asked and these have been some of the most wonderful and fun evenings we've had in a long time. No I can't say yes every single time and I can't blow off all the junk I gotta do to keep things rolling around here, but saying yes has been incredible for all of us. My daughter and I have had more together time than we have in a long time AND we are getting along better because of it. The whole family is kicking each other's butt in Uno every single night before bed and we are laughing and enjoying it. I hate to cut it short ya'll but it is 7:25pm and I have been asked to join our nightly Uno game and I really can't think of anything else I would rather be doing.
XOXO,
Amy
My husband has no qualms about sitting down to build Lego's for hours on end, if that is what the kids are doing. He will help them figure out all of their engineering challenges and will come up with new characters and better ways of building things, all in the name of playing. He has always done this whether it was designing train tracks, making the tallest tower out of wooden blocks or coming up with comical conversations between Barbie and Ken. He has set up more "used car lots" and logged many more hours of pretending to eat plastic food at the "restaurant" than most parents I know and definitely kicks my butt in hours of playtime by zillions. In fact, while I am writing this I overheard Callie asking if he'd like to play a round of Uno and his immediate response was, "yes." He shows me up all day long in the field of playing.
I am playing deficient and I openly admit that it just isn't that enjoyable for me. It's not that I don't like playing so much, it is the whole sitting down and doing "nothing productive" when I've got a bunch of crap I need to be doing. As you may notice there are a few things wrong with this statement, beginning with "playing is just sitting down and doing nothing productive." Clearly, I don't actually feel that way about playing, or do I? If you are in my head, you know that I don't think playing is a waste of time. If you aren't in my head, which no one actually is in there, than my actions say something completely different about my opinion of playing. My actions are the exact things I am trying to work on to have a happier and more balanced life.
Take the typical scenario, Henry asks me to build with Legos, so I journey upstairs to start building, something I am terrible at doing, and a few minutes in I hear the buzz of the dryer. While Henry is busy and occupied, I excuse myself to, "go fold this load really quick." I fold, I start the next load, I put away the clothes and then I see that we are close to having to start dinner so I take out some meat from the freezer. The dog starts pacing near her food bowl because it's dinner time for her so I feed her, notice the trash is full so I take it out. When I come back in she is at the back door to go out and then I gotta replace the garbage bag and I go ahead and wipe down the counters and do the few dishes in the sink so it's all clean and ready for when I make dinner later. In this time, the washing machine finishes so I go ahead and toss that load into the dryer and put another in and I am really knocking things off the to do list now! Meanwhile, Henry is still building and I have forgotten that I began the whole exchange with a request from him to join in the building, yet I've built nothing at all and my, "let me go fold that really quick" has turned into 45 minutes of chores and abandoning my son. He of course understands, but how many times can I do this until he just stops asking me to play?
That is my typical faux pas with playing and I am a multiple time offender. I sit down to play with the best intentions, but duty calls and the kids seem occupied so I take off to do one of the many "things" on my list and they just accept that and move on...until they don't anymore.
Actions speak louder than words as we all know, and my actions say that I believe playing is a waste of precious time. My words and my heart believe differently though and I think playing is actually one of the most valuable forms of learning there is. How I act though, well it can use some work if how I feel isn't being portrayed at all.
That brings me to the title of this post. For the past week I have said, "Yes" and meant it. I have left laundry on the bed and played Guess Who, Uno and Connect Four. I have worked puzzles, helped organize drawers, watched silly shows and colored in coloring books. I have said, "yes" each time I was asked and these have been some of the most wonderful and fun evenings we've had in a long time. No I can't say yes every single time and I can't blow off all the junk I gotta do to keep things rolling around here, but saying yes has been incredible for all of us. My daughter and I have had more together time than we have in a long time AND we are getting along better because of it. The whole family is kicking each other's butt in Uno every single night before bed and we are laughing and enjoying it. I hate to cut it short ya'll but it is 7:25pm and I have been asked to join our nightly Uno game and I really can't think of anything else I would rather be doing.
XOXO,
Amy
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