Evil Town

This afternoon, my husband offered to take the girls with him to Wiseway.  This is a generous offer.  Anyone with multiple children knows how quickly a parent can get overwhelmed and outnumbered.  All day the "Mama, I need...", "Mama, I want...", and "Mama, (do this)..."  was doubled.  Tripled even!  Wolfie quickly realized what an awesome deal this was too.  He would get coveted Mama-only time.  For me, the 1:1 ratio was very appealing because if there is only one child in the house, and said child were to occupy him/herself for just a few minutes, I might actually be able to complete a project from start to finish.  A project like, say, taking the folded clothes out of the laundry basket and putting them away without sixteen interruptions.

No sooner did the door close behind his sisters and Papa, did Wolfie exclaim, "Mama, do you want to create an Evil Town with me?"  Heck yeah. 

Sooner or later I began fantasizing about what project I could drift off to once Wolfie was fully engrossed with creating Evil Town.  I glanced over at the kids's craft table.  It's covered in marker, crayon and sticker residue.  Boy, that thing sure could use a good wipe down.  And some razor blade scraping - how satisfying could that be.  I was absent-mindedly picking off some extra glue stuck to the bottom of some train track pieces while daydreaming.  (We recently dismantled the train table Gabe had built and saved some track pieces that were salvageable.  Earlier that day, Wolfie and I chiseled the glue off some of the more stubborn pieces.  We used a screwdriver and a hammer; it was a big job.)

Then Wolfie interrupts my preoccupied glue-picking and says, "Mama, don't be a person that just does jobs.  Come on, let's play."  Yes, of course.

Sometimes playing with Wolfie is reduced to watching him play.  He has very good ideas.  I, apparently, have lame ideas so playing with him means that I get to do about 20% of what I want to do.  For example, I found an orange bracelet and suggested it be a ring of fire in Evil Town.  Wolfie's eyes lit up and he told me that was a great idea.  Score!  Then, since I was on a roll, I noticed a blue bracelet and suggested that it be a ring of ice.  That idea was shot down.

I love playing with my kids.  On the floor.  Playing.  And as much as I was itching to sneak off to the laundry basket, or over to that crusty craft table, I was coveting my 1:1 ration.  I had Wolfie all to myself.  He's very easy-going and has an amazing and delightful imagination.  And, after a while, he decided that Evil Town needed a ring of ice after all.

*image BRIO Network and Virus train set series