As a parent do you ever find yourself watching your children and seeing a glimpse of your former self? When you see them walking on walls, jumping in puddles or skipping down the street? Do you ever hear yourself saying “get off that wall”, “get out of those puddles you’ll wreck your shoes” or “just walk normal will you?”. I do to all of the above, regularly. As I said to Hubby a few weeks ago, I’m grumpy with myself for always being grumpy. Sometimes I think we worry too much about what other people think, what other people see when they see our children – I don’t know, being children I guess.
Childhood is all about discovery, about learning new things, about adventure and imagination. Sometimes I’m a little jealous of my children and their ability to see the world differently, to live in their imaginary lands. Sometimes I feel like I’m waaaaaaaaay too serious and I forget to have a laugh.
Last weekend we enjoyed a really fun family day out at Madame Tussauds (post to follow), the Beans were all in good spirits, they didn’t moan (too much) and our journeys into and out of London were pretty pain free. BUT after driving all the way there and back a pre-40th birthday Hubby was a little on the grumpy side by the time we arrived home. He was short with the Beans and brought a bit of a downer to the end of a lovely day. At this point in time I would generally just ignore him until he came out of his grump but I was still on a high from a fun family day so I tried a different approach . . .
As Curly, Hubby and myself were plating up our Fajitas for tea, I started humming the Pharrell Williams tune ‘Happy’. Initially Curly looked at me a little baffled, then he realised what I was doing so he started humming along too and then we broke into song and started dancing around the kitchen. Hubby looked at us like we had lost our minds and then it clicked and he began to laugh. Curly thought this was HILARIOUS and I realised that acting like kids isn’t something that we do often. I’m not suggesting that we act like clowns the whole time but I do think we need to lighten up a bit from time to time and perhaps a good many other parents could too. Children are only young for such a short period of time, I tell myself all the time I don’t want my Beans to grow up too fast but then I find myself telling them off – for being children!!
What do you think, does this strike a chord with you too?
I completely agree! It is so easy to get bogged down with the day to day chores of being a grown up. I love nothing more than acting silly with the Little A’s and really should do it more often it makes for a more fun house for everyone!
We should make it a rule that one day a week, we have to ‘be’ a child even if it’s just for an hour 🙂