Stop hovering for just one hour
W tumbles off the stilts, dusts himself off, checks his elbows for road rash or bruises, then jumps right back aboard. K sings her way up the driveway, Skip-It keeping time as it whirls around her ankle. Z and M duel with light sabers, J circling around them offering tactical advice.
Saturday morning, after the sleepover. Not a parent in sight. Heaven.
Today, I just watched the kids. Not “watched” as in “was the responsible adult on duty.” Or, heaven forbid, as in “babysat;” it’s not babysitting when it’s your own children. Today, I just watched; didn’t guide, didn’t hover, didn’t resolve their disputes, just soaked in the pleasure of seeing kids be happy as they played in the yard, while I, like Marlin Perkins on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, observed from the anonymous safety of the living room window.
As part of the Helicopter Parent generation, that’s not easy, nor common for us. There’s always a Next Thing to get to: a practice, or a meeting, or errands, or homework, or back to work for Dad, so please play by yourselves for a while. Not wishing to have these years pass by unattended, we try to spend a lot of time with our kids, actively doing what they are doing, be it reading or games or movie time. Endemic to our generation is the notion of the Play Date. “Go out and find someone to play, ” my mom would tell me, confident that in the safety of our suburban neighborhood of big Irish families all enrolled in the same Catholic school, I would find a pickup game of kickball or kick the can or kick something. Today, with our comparatively small number of neighborhood kids scattered across local schools, commuter schools, multiple sports leagues, and weird parental work schedules, we are less involved with kids a block away than those five miles away.
So a wonderfully unprogrammed morning like this is a real treat for everyone. We’ve reached the magical age when more guests means less work, not more, and parents are not only superfluous, they’d actually be in the way.
The conversation ranges widely. The merits and strengths of various Jedi are disputed; Anakin Skywalker is widely hailed as the most powerful, despite a disturbing tendency toward the Dark Side. The relative homework loads of competing elementary schools are weighed; a draw, it seems, since it was all dreadful anyway. A major Lego construction project is spec’d, bid, contracted and Lego shovels placed in Lego dirt. M wheedles a subprime mortgage from J, a notorious soft touch.
These kids have pretty rich imaginative lives. Not for nothing did the National Toy Hall of Fame induct such luminaries as “The Stick” and “The Cardboard Box” into its pantheon. We are only a few crayons away from a land speeder, an X-Wing fighter or Droid Control Ship. (Truly, Crayola deserves a Service To Parentkind Lifetime Achievement Award. ) These kids lack only a red wagon full of scrap metal and a flop-eared white dog with patch around the eye to qualify as principals in an “Our Gang” comedy.
I tumble back in memory. Cardboard five gallon ice cream buckets affixed to the ceiling, cardboard discs on the floor, and a detailed cardboard control panels make a credible Enterprise Transporter Room. Phases whittled from balsa wood hang from our belts. My friend Brian could make anything. He’s now a Highly Placed Government Official, his childhood geek life still a secret, I’d think. We haven’t talked in years. He’s a click away on Facebook. I almost call him. I don’t.
Little Sister dances around the action. She doesn’t need to be in the fray; she just wants to be near it, cheer it, part of the Big Kids fun. W’s little brother Z joins in. He’s gallant, showing her how to nock an arrow and shoot. He’s unaware that he will be a raging heartthrob in a few years by virtue of his delicate good looks and understated charm.
No classic era game of Cowboys and Indians can hope to match the leaps and swirls of M, whose prowess with the light saber presages a career as a drum major, or as I like to call him, Paduwan Bucky Badger. Not having reached ten years, the play-fighting still lacks the brutality and swagger that comes with age, X-Box and Big Cable. Dead means dead, and there’s no eviscerating the carcass yet. (The Storm Trooper, felled by a deflected laser bolt, sprawls in the grass, his helmet incongruously crackling with pre-recorded phrases.)
“M has some great light saber skills,” I later remark to W. “Well, he’s a Jedi,” he replies seriously. His voice drops into its lowest register. “He’s a Jedi Master.” Little Brother chimes in. “I’m actually on the High Jedi Council,” he intones. “In real life, I actually am. ”
The rush of activity abates. Sitting in the chalked floor plan of the Rebel Base, a scheme is hatched for freeing the galaxy from Imperial domination. They mount bikes, blasters fully charged. Off with the arms; Darth Vader’s dismemberment proceeds along its foreordained path. Little Sis stays behind to work on the floor plan. It needs more pink.
Today is a good day to celebrate contentment. Not riches, not achievement, not self-satisfaction with my own cleverness or hard work or service to mankind. Simple, humble thankfulness for the stewardship of God’s children.
Come bedtime, my son reflects. “Was this the best day ever or what? I got my Lego Magazine, I got straight A’s, and my friends came over to play. ” Best. Day. Ever.