A short history lesson (because I’m sadly at that point in my life now were when I say things some people actually look at me like I am talking dinosaur) before we begin. Back in 1999 there was a song (which was actually a valedictorian speech originally) called ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’. I loved it, because of how the speech went. It was actually very clever.
That’s were the title of this post comes from, a slight nod of the head to that song/speech.
See, we’re doing a lot of work from home lately with the kids underfoot. I say underfoot, I do mean having to put up with their roommates setting up an office for eight hours of the day in the kitchen. Like that is going to be just annoying for anyone, particularly those that don’t work or pay rent or bills and just want everything yesterday for Dagda’s sake.
We try and do a bit of ‘off/on’ work time with them so they can play without being told every five seconds to be quiet as a parental unit is on a call. They should be allowed to play, after all. They are kids. The problem is they are at that age that means they need a parent around to ensure they don’t go harming themselves. Karen has been getting bits and bobs off the internet to help us out. Craft kids, a mud kitchen and a trampoline.
Yes, a bloody trampoline.
It arrived this week and was physically painful to put together (fucking elastic straps) but we did it under the cover of darkness. The idea being to surprise the kids in the morning with the whole trampoline ready for jumping fun. Along came the next morning, out they go to the garden as the working day starts, and immediately the war begins.
We are used to the war at this stage. One of them has picked up a pebble that the other one wants because it looks different to ALL THE OTHER PEBBLES IN THE GARDEN. I stepped out to start peace talks, expecting them to be fighting about who was on the trampoline or who had jumped into whom. I was literally disgusted to see that the war was not about anything normal like that – it was about the box the trampoline had come in.
See, as I said, we put the thing together under the cover of darkness. Cleaning up the box wasn’t high on the list of things to do. So we had put it to the side of the house. The kids had taken it, dragged it right up to the trampoline, and were fighting over which got the top part and which the bottom. Thomas wanted the bottom and was trying to climb into it to sleep, Olivia figured the top would make an excellent throne. But both parts were attached, so they couldn’t do one without messing the other.
I imagine this is how all the great wars start.
This is following on from the mud kitchen box battle of Tuesday the week before. One want it to be a race car, the other a boat. Both sat in it and the thing became a flat-Earth model.
Honestly, in this time of viruses and unknowns and what not I think we can all agree that the smart money would be to invest in cardboard. And then forget ordering the actual toys the kids might want, just get different types of boxes and let them beat the living snot out of each other.
My money is on Olivia – she fights dirty (I’ve caught her getting digs in when nobody was watching).
Parenting Pobal 