From the looks of it thus far, it looks like journalism will not be in my kids’ futures.
They simply do not share my passion. That’s fine by me, but I am surprised by their lack of interest in what I think at the most simplest is pretty cool stuff.
I remember during a bad summer storm a huge oak tree was uprooted near our house. Protruding from the ground was a stump that rose about nine feet tall. Once I heard about it, I grabbed my camera and went out the door. I thought both my kids might think it was cool to see as well so I took them along. I encouraged them to get out of the car and come see it close up. That took a lot of convincing, for some reason.
After basically forcing them out, they were not impressed, but they did enjoy jumping off it into my arms before we were chased off by the property owner, who had every right to be annoyed at us.
This week was another reminder that what fascinates me — and I think the general public — does not do much for 6- and 5-year-old boys.
A partially frozen bay did not enthrall them. Huge icicles, measuring longer than my leg, formed by blowing salt water on street signs did not interest them. Chunks of ice floating through the Inlet did not impress. Snow accumulating on the beach bored them. Bulldozers removing snow from merchant parking lots barely resulted in a nod.
However, when I slipped and fell while scraping ice off my windshield Tuesday morning, they laughed and laughed and each asked me to do it again. Beckett did so with some circular fist gyrations (ala Arsenio Hall), requesting I throw a snowball the next time on my way down. Meanwhile, Carson signed “more” so hard I thought his fingertips were going to be swollen.
Thanks to cabin fever from this ridiculous weather last weekend, we took on a house project on Sunday afternoon.
It was not planned, but we basically ran out of options of things to do with the kids so we thought we would try to be productive and rearrange our master bedroom. It’s the last thing I wanted to do but with it too cold to be outside for more than a few minutes I agreed it was the best time to do it.
This was heaven for Carson because he loves to move furniture around. Most of the time he gets in trouble for doing it, but this was one time we fed a passion of his. He was thrilled with the idea of helping, particularly since he could move things around.
Due to the bulk associated with most of the furniture, he was relegated to putting his hand on top of mine or his mom’s as we moved items or just standing back pointing in different directions as if he was the general contractor. He was just happy to be involved.
Throughout most of the process, Carson was by our side. Although he got in the way some, Pam and I indulged him because he loved it so.
For us to rearrange our room, just about everything had to come out of it first. So nearby rooms and areas quickly became quite cluttered. Carson had a lot to do with that.
He actually was extremely helpful on many levels, as he took small pieces of furniture and books out of our room, but he was not so neat and gentle with how he put them down and where they went. For instance, it was not helpful to fetch those books he placed in the bathtub or the magazines he put in the shower or the dirty clothes bin he inadvertently dumped so he cut down on his trips in and out of the room.
Overall, though, he was a huge help, while Beckett wanted nothing to do with the project. Instead, he took our distraction as an opportunity to work on some soccer downstairs as well as overdose on technology. He did walk in and out of the room a few times and praised us for our efforts. That was nice of him.
Sledding is fun but I’m thankful it’s a rarity around here.
After we went sledding on Tuesday, I asked Beckett what his favorite part was, and he made it clear it was watching me wipe out a couple times. Part of that I was able to capture on my GoPro to preserve for eternity.
My kids approach sledding in vastly different ways. Carson is a worker bee who struggles to walk back up the hill on his own, but he has the “want to” because he loves the “wee” factor of sledding down. He just needs a helping hand to get back up.
On the other hand, Beckett loves going down the hill but detests having to walk back up. He particularly hates having to carry his sled. Therefore, over the course of an hour, I am thinking he only sled a handful of times. Instead, he just lied down at the bottom of the hill and did snow angels.
One of my favorite GoPro videos from the day was when I affixed it to the front of the sled Carson and Pam were riding. The facial expressions were awesome and pure joy.
When I put it on the front of Beckett’s sled, he decided to back fist it off, which also made for an entertaining video, including an up-the-nose shot of me cleaning off the lens from it being run over.
Good times.