And, why not? Why not, in my copious amount of spare time, could I not find the wherewithal to pen an intellectual, thought-provoking treatise seven days a week?
The answer is two-fold:
- I don't have copious amounts of spare time to write (and nor, for that matter, do my friends and family have copious amounts of time to read my blog posts).
- Not a whole lot of interesting stuff happens in our household each and every day. The kids and I wake up, get dressed, gobble down some breakfast and, if we're lucky, we get to school with one or two minutes to spare. On Fridays, if we're feeling ambitious, we get donuts on the way to school.
Childhood, or Anarchy?
Let's just say that listening ears in the Hastings household have not been up at full volume lately. I count myself as part of the problem here, as I am sure I've been doing a lot of talking (and cajoling and scolding and huffing and puffing) but not a whole lot of listening. In turn, my sweeties have found either great pleasure or just great curiosity in testing their own selective listening skills all while also trying out new behaviors. Like, you know, fibbing. Or ignoring me. Suffice it to say that conversations that take place after the initiation of said behavior do not go well.
On Monday, Elizabeth proudly announced to me, as she was piling into the car when I picked them up from school, that she ate the apples I'd packed in her lunch. Note: getting her to eat fruits and veggies of any sort requires high levels of intensive diplomacy and negotiation.
"Really? That's great!"
A pause. Silence.
"Lizzie, did you eat your apples?"
Pause.
"Well," she began ... "I had one but the rest were kind of icky."
"So, you DIDN'T eat all of your apples?"
Pause.
"Elizabeth?"
"No," she whispered.
"So, that was a fib?"
"Yes," she said with a dramatic sigh.
Okay, so she got busted for that.
Later that evening, when it was well past 9:00, David came into my room and asked if he could either keep reading or play for a bit. "No, sweetie, it's past your bedtime. Time to tuck in."
"Okay," he said, and trotted off.
Thirty minutes passed and I peeked in on him. There he was, sitting on his bed, lights on in the room, playing Sudoku.
"David? Did I tell you to go to bed?"
"Yes," he said quietly, but not looking up from the puzzle he was working on.
"Did you?"
"No," he confessed, still looking at his book.
"WHY NOT?" I asked, getting a tad shrill.
"Because I wanted to do Sudoku."
After we'd established that he had, in fact, ignored me, it was confirmed that he, too, was busted.
And these incidents, while certainly not the end of the world, do make me wonder whether I'm giving priority to the right things. The kids go to a highly challenging school, where the work load ramps up with each grade. This year has been a doozy for David, and he's finding it hard to adjust to the fact that some subjects might just take a bit of work to master. Don't get me started on the poor kid's penmanship; he gets that from his parents. And yet, with all of this in mind, I feel a huge pang of guilt whenever we come home from school and see the neighborhood kids playing outside. David automatically rolls down his car window and calls out, "sorry, can't play. I have homework."
What kind of childhood is that, I ask you?
I don't think any of us have a great answer to that, because no balance between work and play is perfect. But the one thing I could indulge the kids in this week was to prepare dessert for a "birthday party" they were throwing for one of Elizabeth's baby dolls. On a whim, I made a batch of chocolate cupcakes for the kids to enjoy with their stuffed and plastic companions.
