Motherhood Hijinks

Quality Time

Spending time with your child and experiencing their imagination is a wondrous thing. You never know what to expect and you always hope for the best. And then they get it into their heads that they can fly. I would blame Top Wing for this, but that hadn't been created yet...
Mommy, I’m going to try to fly like a bird!” she said. “You are? I’m scared.” I replied cautiously. “Yes, I am. It’s time. I’ve got to fly like a bird and you’re going to let me outside.” The things kids think they can get us to do. What happened to your manners young lady? “I’m going to let you outside? You think so?” She looks at me with a very serious expression on her face. “Yes, you will.” Then she takes a deep breath, flaps her hands and jumps off the chair that I didn’t comprehend she was standing on. “Darn!” She exclaims. Apparently that didn’t go quite how she was expecting. I ask, “Are you quite alright?” Eagerly she climbs back up onto the chair and announces, “I’m going to try again!” and then jumps. Again, “I’m okay!” Now all I can do is laugh and wonder how much of this attitude my own mother got from me. Most likely all of it.
While we're on the subject, children are also just so funny. Thank goodness they’re also very resilient. Believe it or not, we haven’t even had to go to the emergency room for any injuries. Except now, I am preparing myself for that to change. You know, putting it out there into the universe and all. There are just some things a parent really shouldn’t say.
Take the case of Sophie not listening to reason. Sophie decides to ignore me when I ask that she please not dance and jump around the room. Why should she, what’s the worst that can happen? Her slipping on a piece of paper that I had also asked her repeatedly to pick up. She goes down like a ton of bricks and hits her cheek on the floor. She jumps up and before I can say a word, Rosie turns around and starts laughing. Sophie says over and over, “I’m okay!” While her little sister is laughing like a hyena. Guess you should have listened to your mom.
Then you think that having kids is about caring for someone that you created all on your own. OK, so it’s a lot more than that. Love, nurturing, caring, snuggles, the works. The plus side is, you also get to ask them to do things for you. Like get the mail and take out the trash. I mean, they’re your little minions. Within reason of course. No finding super villains here to take over the world. Calm yourselves. Getting them to do the things we don’t exactly want to is only half the fun. I’m almost 99.9% positive my husband enjoys “spending quality time” with our girls in this way.
One day after work, Clark came home and the daily ritual was that the girls would help Daddy with boot time. This particular day, the girls wanted to take his boots off rather than wait for him to take them off and then they put them away. So Clark asked Sophie and Rosie to go ahead and take his boots off. Sophie managed to get one off, but Rosie was having a difficult time getting the other one off, so Sophie tried to help her. “Sophie, you have to pull at the back first,” Clark said. I start laughing and said, “Sophie, heel baby! The back! Heel!” I’m obviously not very helpful with vague directions. Clark also didn’t seem to think so either, “Don’t tell her to heel! She’ll stop!” Whoops. Didn’t mean to puppy train my kid. Do you think she will recover? So far she has, but Rosie sure is keen on behaving like a puppy 50% of the time....