When Anika was 1-2 years old and didn't have any siblings to play with, just me, I remember playing a lot of house and constantly thinking of new things to do with her. Exhausting, but easy to feel like a good mom with all that minute to minute activity.
Now, 3 kids later, things have changed a lot. Well, for a while anyway...with Anika in school all day, I have I and O who often play together in the mornings without any desire for my companionship. This leaves me with some good time to clean, read, and study and ponder (I should have put that one first so I'd do it). I can't say I didn't enjoy this peaceful time. However, I often felt bad about not playing with them as much.
Funny things happen, though, and I should have known all good things cannot last. I and O are having problems in their once mostly peaceful relationship. Now they want me! They need me to play with them and tell them what to do next! In other words, they are normal children again. We play house. We play kitchen. We play dolls and house again.
Olivia rockin' the house at our doll party
Any way you have it, I always feel better at the end of the day knowing I played some hardcore house with the girls. I feel better knowing during hide and seek I wasn't just cleaning up the kitchen really fast and ducking behind the counter using that as a lame hiding spot (tip: only do that when it's your turn to count and count slow). I feel better knowing I came up with some worthwhile activities for them to do. Then I feel I truly earn those times they play without me just fine. And I praise the heavens even more those times they play together in Zion-like fashion.
3 comments:
Why don't you mix it up a bit and play army? Then you are just in the mess hall while cleaning kitchen and when you are general you get to order them to do stuff like clean their rooms.
I really enjoyed playing house with my kids the two times they let me. It's best when you get to play bedtime.
You are doing a good thing. I admit that often I have a hard time playing Barbies for long. Sometimes I play the "mean girl" because you can have a little more fun with that role.
siblings are great until you only have one left at home... M is used to being entertained 100% of the time and so I can barely sneak away to the bathroom by myself before I am required to read another story or retrieve more polly pockets from the far reaches of the closest shelf
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