I often get frustrated by how young my children are, because they don’t understand (or care?) how to do things “the right way:” they throw everything, instead of using things the way they’re intended. I mean blocks, books, dress-up clothes, and puzzle pieces, errythang. This means that I give their room a wide berth and don’t play with them very often. When I do venture into the eye of Sauron, our play time inevitably turns into a hand-over-hand OT session where I try to get my three year old to stack blocks instead of repeatedly dumping them out. I make them put all the books back on the shelf, or grill them on the color of each piece of toy fruit I put away.

That’s not playing, and trust when I say that my kids let me know that they hate it.

So today, when my three year old climbed into bed with me and started shaking his MF sillies out, I thought about telling him to get down and go away. He was too loud; he could fall and be hurt; I didn’t want him playing with the blind pull like a dangly-stuff-obsessed weirdo; I’d literally just lay down because I wanted 60 seconds of quiet in a room by myself.

But I didn’t. 

Instead, I thought, “Fuck it,” and started shaking my sillies out, too. What happened next was thirty glorious minutes that may be the most fun we’ve ever had together. We took turns making ridiculous noises, tickling each other’s tummies, pretending to fall face-first into the mattress and crowing, “BOOM!” at the top of our lungs. I didn’t worry about expressive language or his developmental delays. He didn’t throw anything or run away. He stayed and played with his mom until his brother came in singing, “Bus round round town BUS!”

And I feel like a fool. I’ve been so focused on catching him up on all the words he can’t say yet that I’ve failed to see what he’s been telling me all along: he’s a little kid. He’s not actually incorrigible. He just wants to have fun and play with me. So tomorrow, that’s what I’ll make time to do. No quizzing, no photos, no younger siblings. Just me and my smart, funny, ridiculously silly kid.

Tierra

A malcontent with a heart of gold, Tierra is a first-year medical student, former high school teacher and history PhD candidate, plus mom to four of Bebe’s baddest kids. She curses a lot. Tierra is a DC native but lives in southwest Michigan and will happily exchange writing (hers) for cash (yours).