I’m boycotting responsibilities.
Not all of them. It’s just that lately I have been way too overwhelmed with jobs and home life. I can’t really boycot jobs if I want to make money, so I’ve been boycotting home life.
Not my family. Just the chores and the grocery shopping and anything else unpleasant. Boycotted. Not doing them. You can’t make me.
Instead, I’ve been spending my time as if I am the nanny of a wealthy New York socialite (something I became an expert on after reading AND watching Nanny Diaries. See? And you questioned my authority). I’ve been taking my daughter to fun places without worrying about what is waiting for me at home. I haven’t allowed an ounce of guilt to creep in for spending time only in the pursuit of fun while the floors remain a patchwork quilt of last night’s (ok, last WEEK’S) dinner. And the toilets? While I am at the zoo, I can imagine that the maid will take care of those. And when I get home and actually see them, I can get really angry that the maid isn’t doing a good job.
Remember? Boycotted.
While ignoring the dishes, I saw a post by Emily of Is This Really My Life? with a picture of her children at Thanksgiving Point’s Children’s Gardens. That looks fun, I thought, and swooped over to my daughter to announce we would be visiting a garden.
She was ecstatic, so we went. And we had a blast. The Children’s Gardens are set up for imagination. If you know me, you know I lost my imagination over 15 years ago. Vanessa of www.inevergrewup.net is the queen of imagination and I study her faithfully to understand how to play pretend with my daughter. Creepy? Maybe a little.
But let me tell you, even I could imagine in this place. I imagined fairies in the lighthouse (they forgot their shoes when they left, according to Lydia) and a symphony conducted by my daughter (she stood on a box and waved a stick while I ‘played’ the piano). I imagined we were African animals and we took turns being the elephant.
We imagined a dance performance on the stage.
My imagination only took me so far since I could only last for about a minute or two. But then Lydia took over. And we had so much fun.
She even imagined she could fit her whole body into this crate.
Why is it so easy to imagine here? They have it set up so perfectly. In the midst of beautiful shade trees and flowers, there are areas sectioned off with wooden blocks, fun rocks and tree stumps to climb, sand pits, play houses, caves, instruments and stages.
And the best part, according to Lydia? The water area. I told her not to sit in it because I didn’t bring a change of clothes. She obeyed for a few minutes, but what was I thinking? That’s like asking her not to touch a cookie in a room filled floor to ceiling with cookies.
She sat in the water. And I didn’t care. Because the maid at home will do her laundry.
I did not receive any sort of payment for blogging about this. I wish I did.
{ 8 comments }
What a fun time! Love Emily. And Thanksgiving POint.
Wow! How did we miss those crates? It was about 90 degrees when we went and we had already been to the dinosaur museum, so perhaps we rushed through there too quickly. Dang! We’ll have to go back!
And yes, toilets and floors can always wait. I’m slowly learning that!
Anyone who can imagine a maid at home has a great imagination. What a fun day. Don’t be too hard on the maid.
Sounds so fun! If my girls were old enough to enjoy this kind of thing, I’d be begging to come with you. Switch to paper plates and you’ll have less dishes to do!
I mean, the maid will have less dishes to do…
What a fabulous mother you are. Lydia is so lucky. If you wern’t having a foreign exchange student come to live with you, I would come live with you just so I could have fun too.
wish i could be as witty as you. will you PLEASE write a book.. i love it.
what a good mom you truly are! that takes alot to be imaginatory…ya know what i’m trying to say. i think you SHOULD fire your maid…but she might claim unemployment and we all know there is too much of THAT going around.
I love Thanksgiving Point… And Emily… and You. But mostly I like the baby animals you can see while at Thanksgiving Point.
And all this time I’ve been feeling guilty about the mess my house is in… tsk! tsk! It’s not my problem.. it’s the maid’s, right? Loved this post! I’ve been meaning to take my kiddos to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens but wasn’t sure what to expect. Now I’m excited!!
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