Lucky me. The kids had a late start at school today, which by all accounts for them is AWESOME. Doubly awesome for dad who gets to shirk work for the second day in a row and go in late to be sure the kids get on the bus and all that. So instead of getting up at 5am, I got to nuzzle further into my pillow and my nookie blankie, which isn't a blanket at all, but a Spider-Man t-shirt.
Yeah, I know. I mentioned Batman in the header. Sorry to get Marvel on all you DC fans.
So I was toasting a delicious Thomas Cinnamon Swirl bagel (available at your local grocery store in the bread isle) this morning, waiting for the coffee to brew and not expecting the girls to get up at their normal time. But Julia woke up at 7am anyway, lumbered upstairs and said, “Dad, want to play LEGO Batman with me? Yesterday I beat the Catwoman level and I need your help on the Penguin level.”
Okay. Honesty time. I love video games. But I rarely have the time to play them anymore. The one thing I just don't do with video games is play co-op games with the kids. For you folks who don't know what a co-op game is, I'll explain. A co-op game allows 2 players to play simultaneously. Sounds like fun, right? With another adult, sure. With kids, it REALLY sucks. See your player is tied to the other player, so if one player thinks it is hilarious to just run in circles or do little video game dances on screen rather than completing the level, then you can't do anything but sit and watch. So every time the girls ask me to play co-op, I always say no.
This morning, I said YES.
So I went downstairs with my coffee and bagel while Jules gets the game setup. Once locked in, I assumed the role of The Penguin, while Jules took the mantle of Killer Croc. Now, LEGO games are completely harmless, fun and at times hard to figure out. So it didn't take long for me to get into it and relish whacking prison guards with my parasol.
You can learn a lot about your kids and how they are slowly growing up to be like you through video games. At one point, I had to blast something using my Penguin submarine but didn't know how (GEEZER ALERT).
“How do I do this, Jules?” I asked.
“Just shoot it!”
“Yeah, I've been trying. Which button?”
“The RED one.”
“Nope. Tried that.”
“Well, I don't know!”
We endured numerous of these little back-n-forths during the game. You haven't seen video game futility until you have seen me manning The Penguin and can only get his umbrella to pop out. Ridonkulous. So we played through three levels and eventually completed the game, all before 9:00am. I guess you can't bitch about life if you are able to do that in one morning.
Tonight, I thought about this morning. As an adult and a parent, I have run across numerous times where I am doing the dishes, cooking dinner, working on my books or whatever, when the kids ask to do something. Quite honestly, I have probably only heard half of those requests over the years because I was so busy.
Bad Parent Award Winner.
But today, I didn't say NO, I didn't just placate them and go back to the adult responsibilities, I said YES. Now, I wonder how much life would be better, if we simply said YES to our children more when they want to do something with us. I mean really, what's it going to hurt. Will the dishes gods be angry, if I stopped doing the dishes to color with Christa? Would the world spin off its axis if I paused cooking long enough to see Julia's new trick on her bike. The answer is a resounding NO. The adult world would not crash down around us if we engaged our wild side once in a while and played.
When Julia was born, my mother told me, “They grow up fast.” And even though it is a phrase uttered by every grandmother on the face of the planet, it is only repeated because it so absolutely true. Sometimes, when I have a moment, Julia or Christa catch me watching them do their kid things. Their immediate reaction is, “What are you looking at?”
I always say, “Nothing,” because as children they wouldn't understand that moment I just had, watching them exist and grow before my eyes. When they become parents themselves, hopefully they'll look back on those moments and understand that kind of happiness.
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