I chose the latter. Don’t ask me why. Because doling out a no-screens sentence would have been easier than stifling the laughter and incredulously posed “Are you serious right now” question that I really wanted to let fly. What I found when I opened the door is Chris, both hands holding on to his inflatable bouncy ball for dear life.
“My ball is deflating. I need tape. Tape! Tape! Where is the tape in this house?”
The child was seriously panicking and he needed tape, Stat! Before even asking what the big deal is about a ball deflating, I pulled the tape from its magical hiding place called Right Where It Always Is and performed a flawless exchange of tape for finger maneuver in the exact spot the air leak was coming from. Instantly the hiss of bouncy ball life force loss ceased and Chris started to calm down. As he applied no less than 72 more pieces of tape to the ball I tried to calmly explain to him that there is a chance he would lose the ball anyway. I explained that transparent tape is great for wrapping presents, but not necessarily the right tool for the job when it comes to patching holes in plastic.
Yeah, all of those words were pointless. Because not only was he not listening, he was off in another land, mentally crafting the next life-saving procedure for his bouncing ball. In some moments his persistence is inspiring. And sadly it is sometimes wasted. We all know what fate lies ahead for the bouncy ball. We all know that Chris will likely wake in the morning to find a deflated shell of plastic, wiggly and useless, lying in the space where an air-filled vessel of fun once resided.
He will feel sadness over the loss of his trusty bouncy ball, telling tales of the times he shot baskets with it into the hamper and the one time he bounced it off Nick’s face. He will do this while fighting back the tears of a nine year old who just lost his most favoritist toy in the world. It will be a sad, sad moment.
And when the moment is over, I will do what I know I will be unable to prevent myself from doing. I will say something along the lines of “If you loved the ball so much, why on earth did you throw it into rose bushes? With thorns? Lots and lots of thorns? They are bouncy ball kryptonite”. I will allow words like this to come from my mouth because I am who I am and I am a certain type of mother.
I am a mother who will stop everything to rescue a quickly deflating ball that I know has just received a rose bush inflicted death blow. I am a mother who will allow a certain number of moments of over-reacting to the inevitable death of a bouncy ball. And I am a mother who sees a teachable moment in the ridiculousness of the whole situation. And I am a mother who always seems to craft sentences laced with either brutal bluntness or piercing sarcasm. That’s all I've got.
I expect my kids to overreact and to get attached to toys. They are kids. I get that. It does not matter if I understand the attachment or the reactions. They need to know that I will share in all of their difficult times, whether I see what the big deal is or not. Their feelings are theirs and are therefore valid and are important to me.
At the same time, I also expect that my kids will learn methods for dealing with their feelings. While it all seems like a bunch of needless drama, there is something important in the senseless loss of our most favoritist toys in the world and in the way that we deal with it.
In this house we deal with specific methods depending on the severity of the situation. For bouncy ball death we will apply the following: recognition of the problem, moments of reflection, and getting over it. No one has time to dwell on the little tragedies of this life; if we did we would be immobilized because there are infinite little tragedies in life. Because I am a certain type of mother and no one in this house has time for that.
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