Energy. Unbridled, flowing energy. That’s my kid.
Everything he does, he does with exuberance. He sings at the top of his lungs. He’d rather run than walk. He loves big, active play. He bounds through life.
We brought him to my parents’ house last weekend for an overnight visit. It was a special weekend — two grandsons alone overnight with the grandparents — and our little guy couldn’t have been more excited.
We walked in the kitchen just as lunch was starting, and as soon as my son saw his cousin, it was “Hi, Oliver! Hi, Oliver!”
He grabbed his cousin’s hand and held on tight, singing “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!” while bouncing up and down.
Oliver just stared. His big eyes got even bigger as he watched this singing dervish. His jaw dropped.
After a minute or so, the singing and dancing stopped, and my son reached up with his little hands and pinched Oliver’s lips closed.
Then the singing started again.
My son plays without thinking “OK. It’s play time.”
Fun isn’t scheduled.
In everyday mom world, that’s often not how it works. I’ve got a list of things to do when I get home — make dinner, get the mail, pay the bills, feed the cat, wash the dishes, do the laundry, get the little guy ready for bed — that means play time is often squeezed out.
As he gets older, I’m trying to find ways to include him in the list of household chores. He helps make his bed in the morning, he helps make coffee. He loves to push a broom around and to dust.
That list of chores sometimes seems overwhelming, when what I really want to do is bust out the Play-Doh. I draw a mental line: This is work. This is play.
My son doesn’t do that. For him, it’s like “Mary Poppins” all the time. He finds the fun in just about any job. Sweeping the floor, picking up toys, watering plants, setting the table. To me, they’re chores. To him, exciting opportunities.
Now that he’s 2 years old, there’s much more that he can help with. It may make the job take longer — like when the coffee grounds go on the floor and in the filter — but he’s thrilled to help, and there’s far less whining while I’m working.
It’s a perspective shift. Instead of seeing the world from my grown-up, to-do-list eyes, I look out instead from his young, everything’s-a-game eyes.
Somehow, it’s not so exhausting then. Maybe because I’m too busy having fun.
• Mommy Talk is an online parenting blog written by (Racine, Wis.) Journal Times reporters Janine Anderson and Marci Laehr Tenuta. Find it online at www.journaltimes.com/mom.
