A Rainy Gray Day

Mommy.  Mom.  Mama.  Ma.  These are titles that I get called fairly frequently, and yet, I am not any of them…at least not to an English-speaking human child.  The only child I have is furry and speaks Barkish and only when he's bugged about something.   I get called these titles because I like to borrow other people's children and they  tend to forget who they're talking to at least once per visit. Spending the day with a young kiddo nourishes my Inner Child tendencies so I jump at any chance I get to babysit.  I love the utter foolishness and ridiculous behavior that comes with spending time with little kids…such a bummer that so many people seem to miss this opportunity.  Maybe if the kids were mine I would find it hard to have the energy for it too…but someone’s gotta have them.  I've never been one to accept a sitting gig and then actually just sit on the couch and talk on the phone as is often the image the media paints. I guess there are high school or college-aged sitters who might do this who perpetuate the image.  Those people should not be hired to watch your children.  I wasn’t your typical phone-talking, boy-crazy teen so even as a teenager, I never did that.  Generally speaking, I arrive on the job with some combination of a planned outing, art or baking project, game, toy or puzzle.  Sometimes I bring nothing and let the child show me his or her toys and direct what we do.  Both methods have value but I do gravitate to bringing some part of my babysitting arsenal.  I am not really sure what all the kid or kids get out of our time together, I am sure it’s something good but I'm willing to bet I get the better end of the bargain in getting to spend the day or evening with them. Yesterday, I was thrilled to have Gray, My Favorite 5 Year Old Boy for the day.   When talking to little kids, I tend to play dumb a lot.  It makes for much more interesting conversation.  My day with Gray, started off with this one over breakfast:

Gray: I wike vampires..
Me: What’s a vampire?
G: Vampires bite your neck and suck your bwood.
Me: Oh? What's bwood?
G: It's this wed stuff in your bwain and it switters wike a snake inside you. (He puts hands together and waves them like the slithering snake he is describing)  And it's in big chunks in your bwain and it goes down , down, down to your heart and your heart pounds it up and bweaks it into wittiwer pieces and then, (now rubbing his whole body down with his hands)  it goes wherever it wants in the wittle pieces.
Me: Pizzas? What kind of pizza? I like pizza
G: no, NO! PIECES, not PIZZA!!!! And bones cover up your bwood so it can't come out.
Me: hmmm, ya think so? Well not quite...sort of. Your skin covers your blood so it can't come out and your muscles and your bones hide in there too.
G: but there's bwood in my bones
Me: Yes there is.  It’s called bone marrow, but it just sort of stays there and doesn't slither around like the rest of your blood does.
G: oh...I can feel mines bone!! ( Tapping on his own ankle.)
Me: That's a bone? Are you sure it's not a rock? I think it's a rock. (now also tapping on his ankle to determine whether there is a rock inside him)  Yup!  It’s a rock!
G: No!!! Wocks awen't inside you, cause you can't eat wocks!
Me: Oh. Siwwy me.

The weather had been really nasty for several days and no doubt kids everywhere have been cooped up for too long. Our rainy day options that I had planned in my head were painting and making homemade play dough but being warm out, I decided it best to just go play in the rain despite the wetness and gloom.  That would release some 5 year old energy rather than increase the couped-upedness that leads to temper tantrums. A little warm rain and mud never hurt anyone, in fact it's probably right up there with cairn building and sand sculpting as a means for some sort of spiritual connectedness. Donning previously wet shoes and jacket, Gray and I hit the park. We had to drive around road closure barricades that were put up the night before on Azalea Rd when the Swannanoa River jumped its banks again from all the torrential rain. We were not the only car to do this and I could the see that the river had receded enough so proceed we did. The rain came down pretty steadily much to Jake's dismay but Gray and I didn't care. We had the entire dog park to ourselves...granted in was one enormous grassy puddle, but that was part of the fun. We got busy stomping the puddles and making big splashes. The bigger the splash, the better it was.  Our shoes got soaked. Our clothes got soaked. We got very muddy.  Oh well. That's what laundry soap is for, right? We spun around until we got dizzy and then I turned on some music on my iPhone and we danced in the pouring rain. My 3-day post-surgical screw removal from my ankle was a bit sore so I went to sit.  Gray romped around the whole park while the rain tried to decide what it wanted to do, dump or drizzle. After a few minutes or so he began to whine that he wanted to visit his mommy at her job.  I told him I wasn't ready to leave yet and I questioned him about how he would find a way to get there by himself. Whine. More whine. WHINE! This might be where some people would pull out the wine but I just uncorked my own bottle of whine and gave it back to him. The louder he whined the louder I did too. He screamed. I screamed. He yelled. I yelled. He got louder. I got louder. He laughed. I laughed. Wait, laughing…that wasn’t supposed to happen.  He realized he was laughing and got annoyed that he just got duped.  He started to whine again. We went through this cycle about 5 or 6 times, each time getting louder and louder and more and more laughter took over, Gray laughing in spite of himself. Another woman arrived at the park with her two dogs and we kept right on whining and screaming and yelling and laughing and getting louder. Eventually her two dogs distracted Gray just enough to make him forget the game we were playing and off he ran to introduce himself to her dogs. We resumed puddle jumping and he posed for pictures. Being the huge ham that he is he seemed to enjoy showing off his booty shake which in typical 5 year old fashion did not come without fart humor. In my typical Overgrown 10 Year Old fashion, I willingly obliged and we spent another 5 minutes making fart noises and laughing hysterically.

 

 

On the way out of the park we stopped and overlooked the little foot bridge where for months I watched a group of tadpoles develop into tiny froggies. Now there is just mud and algae under the bridge and what is normally a mostly stagnant trickle becomes a full-on creek in heavy rain.
G: what's that swime?
Me: swine? Like pigs? I don't see any pigs around here, do you? There's no way you know what 'swine' means.
G: NO!!! Swime!!! SWIME!!! That gween stuff.
Me: ohhhhhh, SLIME!! That's algae. Some people eat it. Shall we collect some for lunch? Ooh there's a worm too. You hungry?
G: ewww. Yuck. Ooh, that worm is wiggewey. Wets go find some more!

 

The rest of the day fell into a more traditional grown-up / child relationship when I had to discipline him for a poor choice made at Starbucks, insist on a bath with soap before any lunch be consumed and then enforcing quiet rest time.  During quiet time, which in Gray’s World isn’t really quiet but at least it’s in bedroom with the door closed, I reflected on the day.  I thought of The Sound of Music and how the Von Trapp kids weren’t allowed to play, ever.  Maria makes them play clothes and takes them to romp all over Austria and they turn out to be better kids because of it.  I LOVE that movie and I realized that is one of the reasons why.  Maybe that's what they get out of me...I am part Maria and give them an experience that they maybe wouldn’t otherwise have for whatever reason.  Kids need to play.  They need to get dirty.  They need to climb trees and get scraped knees.  They need to hunt down worms and build forts and make dams in the stream.  They need to play outside everyday in every weather.  That’s how they learn.  That’s how they grow.  I have found that some children actually don’t know how to play.  It sounds crazy, I know, but contrary to popular belief, it’s not something they are born knowing how to do.  It’s not that it needs to be taught per se, it just needs to be encouraged and insisting that a kid be still or even allowing a kid to sit in front of the TV or video games for hours on end does nothing to encourage that.  That’s not to say that a quick window of TV time is bad.  It can be a much needed reprieve but letting them get bored is essential to growth…but so many parents won’t let their kids just be.  How many kids do you know who don’t know how to entertain themselves?  A lack of unstructured and uninterrupted play, I would put $1000 on is the culprit.