Friday, June 15, 2012

To be righter

This afternoon I was happily, no, blissfully pulling weeds.  Then Wolfie approached me with two paddles and a small ball and asked, "Mama, do you want to play this game with me?"

I hesitated and he said, "Come on.  What sounds like more fun to you - pulling weeds or playing with your son?  So, do you want to play?"

In a flash, I experienced what could only be called "Mama Sense" and my answer would have been a resounding, "No."  I'm a terrible person, right?  How can I even call myself a mother?  I don't even deserve this sweet boy.

Here's what I considered during my flash of Mama Sense:
1.  Wolfie, you are darling, but you are not very coordinated at paddle ball so we will not have much of a volley.
2.  Because your shots toward me will be wild, I will have to lunge awkwardly and might pull a muscle.
3.  Because your shots toward me will fall short, I will have to do much bending over and that will hurt my back.
4.  Some of your shots will go way way away and I will have to walk all over the yard to get them.  See number 3.
5.  There are only two paddles.  What are the chances the girls will not start demanding, hollering, whining, and interfering to get a turn?

But I love my boy, and I am a good mother, so I said "Yes."

Guess what?  All of the above happened.  But you know what else happened?  We giggled really hard.
1.  When we did have a volley of three in a row - we whooped it up.  It was a celebration.  And I love to see that boy smile and laugh.
2.  His wild shots were usually accompanied by some sort of wild gesture and pose.  This was hilarious.  What's more, I imitated some of his ridiculous postures and that was even more hilarious.
3.  I bent over.  So what.  I was pulling weeds.  Duh.
4.  Even though I had to walk all over to pick up the ball, Wolfie judged the cause and effect relationship and evaluated his actions and talked about using smaller power or stronger power or just medium power next time.  It was a lesson in physics, people.
5.  The girls did want to play.  Of course.  And they got to.  We set up a rotation that both enforced the imperative skill of taking turns in a family of three kids and reinforced the fact that we don't need to buy three sets of every single thing because we have three kids.  It is good to learn to be patient and gracious and to sometimes enjoy watching your silly brother do something that you cannot do.  Plus, is there anything sweeter than seeing your toddler say, "Here you go.  Your turn."?

Did I mention we laughed?  We all had giggle fits.  Wolfie smiled big and toothless and that just warms my heart.  He made a good argument and even though my Mama Sense was right, his logic was righter.

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