Parental Fail

I invited friends to visit today. We were all going to the pool. Four kids plus my three. What a day we were going to have. Problem was, the pool was closed for a swim meet. BUMMER!

I don't think any of the kids were as disappointed as I was. They emptied the tank in the back yard and filled it up with clean, cool water. They played tag (even at 15, 16, and 17 they are playing tag!) They ate cookies and popcorn and played cards. I think they also played some basketball. I don't know all the details, as we moms went to the local antique mall and then for a smoothie at the coffee shop.

It wasn't a swim day, but it was a good day.

Glimpses of a Moment in Time

Whole family is in the kitchen/dining room. This so rarely happens these days (except when we are actually eating). Usually someone is gone from the house... hiding out in a bedroom... just elsewhere.

Evie is pulling monster cookies out of the oven. I am finishing the last spoonful of cookie dough that she has allowed. (She cut me off. "That's your last spoonful, Mom.")

Maddie is talking to herself in Chinese. "I'm cracking myself up," she laughs when I ask, "What?"

Kaman is playing a computer game beside me at the kitchen table.

Hubby is throwing in a load of laundry, feeding the dogs, wiping the counter by the sink... He has just rearranged the market tomatoes into neat little rows.

When you worry about the amount of time they spend playing video games...

My son, age 12, was headed up the stairs this evening to bed. Suddenly he stopped and turned around. This is what he told me:

I was playing Portal 2 and I thought, I would really like to know the real world equivalent of all the science stuff they were doing. First I thought I would go on one of the YouTube channels I watch and ask them to do a video on the science of Portal 2. Then I thought, why don't I look it up and make that video myself. 

Of my three kids, my son's interests are the farthest from my own. I don't always understand what it is he is talking about and I'm not always 100% on board with the way he fills his days. After all these years, I am still amazed sometimes by how hard I have to work at "seeing" what the kids are doing.

It is unfortunate the number of times I have found myself thinking things like, "But he really is just spending hours and hours playing video games." I have to remind myself that I spend hours and hours doing my thing, as well. Sometimes I make myself take notes just to prove myself wrong. Today, for instance,

• He got up early (5AM!) and took a two mile walk with us at the track.
• He and his dad came up with a business idea to allow people to virtually travel the world.
• He counted the money and sorted all the paperwork for last Saturday's farmers market.
• He practiced Italian.
• He shared a TED video with me that he found entertaining. 
• He helped the girls clean at the office (watered plants, washed windows, vacuumed)
• He helped me take the recyclables in.
• He spent time reading from at least 3 different books that I saw. Two were fiction and one was a non-fiction book about being an entreprenuer.)
• He folded laundry.
• He read the newspaper (at least the comics).