These pictures are Sawyer and his dad working on the garage door Brandon built for him--after they had repaired their real garage door. B. used a coke carton or something similar for the garage and rigged a slatted door that Sawyer could pull up and down. But the pictures speak volumes to me about how Megan and Brandon are raising their children. They've apparentaly worked out a schedule whereby he gets up with the children on Saturday, while she sleeps, and she gets up on Sunday. Sunday was the day I spent with them rather than going to the book festival, and when B. got up at ten, he went straight to work on the door he'd started the night before. Megan and I spent the morning playing with Ford and the horses and stable I'd sent for his b'day. There was tons of work to be done around that house, but they devoted their time to playing with the boys. About eleven, we were all on the porch admiring the garage door, and one of them asked, "What's the plan for the day?" and the other said, "I don't know. What's the plan?" Then the subject went away--there was no plan. After a while we had lunch, and I asked about the plan. They didn't know and asked about my plan. I said I thought I'd go to my guest apt., read, do my yoga, take a nap and shower. They said that sounded good. When I wandered back to the house two or three hours later, B. and Sawyer were on a bike ride, Megan had gotten on a cleaning and sorting kick, and Ford was happily playing around her. She talked of talking him for a ride on her bike but that never materialized. About 5, it appeared that Sawyer really really wanted to go to Loew's to buy springs for his garage door, so we all went for a trip that was so long Megan and Ford and I sat in the car and watched the sunset. Then it was back home, rush to feed the boys, get them to bed, and dinner for the adults at eight or eight-thirty.
My point in recounting all this is that they don't have a plan. They just play with their kids and enjoy them, and they make me feel guilty. I always had a plan, always had things I had to do. I didn't play with them all the time--I let them play with each other. Of course there were four, not two, and they played amicably, but still I often wasn't part of it.Yes, I took them to parks and zoos and skipped along paths with them and all that, but when at home, I had things to do. How could I have thought those things were more important than my children? They don't seem to have suffered, and Megan pointed out to me last night that it's a different world these days--B. takes equal responsibility for feeding, diapering and all that--this morning, getting the boys fed and ready for school was as much his responsibility as Megan's. And I think that's wonderful. But I am left with this lingering--why didn't I do that? Why was I so fixated on chores and clean kitchens and meals planned ahead of time? I comfort myself that my kids all turned out to be fine people, so I must not have scarred them.
This morning, two-year-old Ford, who was still a bit unsure about me this weekend because he doesn't see me often, brought me a book to read and pointed to a big chair where we could read it together. After that Sawyer brought a book, and the three of us read it together, with Sawyer pointing out to me that he could read because he recognized "the" twice in one sentence. Be still, my heart! Moments worth gold.
I am home and glad to be. My dog and cat are glad to be back in their routine. I'm tired but caught up on mail and email and ready, slowly, to go back to routine.
I've already voted. Have you?
No comments:
Post a Comment