Brrrrrrrrrrrr ! - it's cold now but I wanted to relate my weekend's high spot to you -
Last Saturday
DG away for loooooooong w/end - in exotic location made miserable apparently by being work conference based.
Missing each other as v rare intimacy had returned briefly, so both a bit sad. Oh dear. Love you miss you xx.
But (woop woop) - it fruitfully chucked up the opportunity to examine navel, drink tea in bed & allow the kids to be kids, hurrah !!
(... ever read The Idle Parent, any of you ?)
I thus decided we could all lie in, eat what we want, do what we want and when we want. For one day. No harm in that surely ?
Hey - we had a projected 7:30 a.m. start on the Sunday to deal with so what the heck !? No guilt here surely !
So .... what's sooooooo special about that ? Ok, let's sell it to you .....
Here are my first tweets that morning as I lay in bed, toes wriggling beneath the duvet, actually tingling with joy at not rushing around - toes really are mood-barometers aren't they ? - ever seen what toes do when their owner comes ?!! Ahem ...
Tweet One - "Today I am going to avoid helicopter parenting - it just breeds adults that need micromanaging! Let kids be kids whilst they still have time"
ta dah !
and upon unrelated sweet but humorous suggestion to race off and do something else deliciously exciting and very dreamy ... (from @VenaRamphal Passion Coach, whom everyone should follow on Twitter.com and at http://www.venaramphal.com/)
Tweet Two - "...if only ! - home-alone-dad this weekend, only plans are chilling with my children ... Loose but lovely plans !"
Curious parent-type friends scanning twitter notice this and quickly do the maths ..... now I was inundated with requests for specifics from them - was I, for instance, going to do junk modelling with the children ? Make sculptures from papier-mache ?
errr .. No !
Next - Was I going to ' _ _ _ _ _ ' with them ?
And there you should insert name of any activity that if described at a coffee morning would allow for all upstanding parental types to grasp exactly the positive educational nature of the event and nod sagely whilst saying something like.....
"Lovely, yes we went there/did that/intend to do that last week/this week/all the time")
No ! No ! No !
The best parenting advice I have ever heard - that I recognise as having been successfully applied to my childhood - is from the book "The Idle Parent"
It's a quote from an eminent thinker whose name escapes and is not important but
Rule 1. Leave the child alone
Rule 2. LEAVE the child alone !
Rule 3. LEAVE THE CHILD ALONE !!!
(I got to run across fields with our terrier and pals, five-go-mad style, build catapults crossbows and go-karts, catch tiddlers, and generally learn how to be an independent creative thinker - Now where is the smug emoticon when you need it !!)
Yes - for a few minutes you may hear "I'm bored" or if the child has already had too much helicopter-parenting, "I want to go to '_ _ _ _ _ _' ..."
(tends to be some place that sells biscuits, that get used to bribe said 'engaged' but increasingly tetchy child whilst at a museum/other worthy activity - they are not stupid and know how to play the game!).
Any way - back to the scene - Saturday morning, my two get on with it like hamsters let on their wheel for the first time - lovely, happy, giggling, playful children.
I receive even more tweets from jealous parent friends who have their day mapped out ..........
Daddy's toes dance the morning away .......
Big big bliss,
Bye bye
x
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