Every pillow in my house has been relocated to the center of my
living room. Why? The oldest of my four children, who is 9, has a
playdate and it’s raining outside. Enough said?!? My daughter’s little
friend is a well mannered, intellegent little girl who happens to share
in my daughter’s facination for pretend. One would think that at 9,
thanks to Brittany Spears, Bratz Dolls and belly shirts, MTV would hold
their interest rather than the giant maze totally constructed of pillows
growing ever taller behind me. I mean every pillow, down to my
youngest, who is 2, crib pillow. She was not very happy at first, but
with a lot of reassurances made by her older sister, she gave up her
pink frilly pillow for a promised entrance into the once completed maze.
Everyone is in the act. My second oldest girl, who is 7, is busily
adding her inventory of pillows. My son, who is 4 and the only boy in
this house besides the two cats at the moment, has been accepted into
the fold as well, light saber in hand. Play dates are very difficult to
control in my house. With good intentions, I invite the 9 year olds,
the 7 year olds and even a 4 year old friend (my son is in desperate
need of male bonding) for some summer or after school fun. I have a 9
room house, 2 of which are bathrooms, 2 of which all 4 of my children
share as bedrooms, 1 of which is my room dedicated to stock piles of
clean and dirty laundry. This basically leaves the main part of the
house (where, by the way my desk is smack dab in the middle of) open to
attempted organize play. We bought this house because of its,
“kid-friendly” potential. Today, I find myself retreating to my
computer and reflecting on the mountain of pillows, soon to be
dissassembled if anyone even thinks about getting any supper placed in
front of them. My four year old son, who is half naked with a feather
sticking out of his head, is screaming somewhere toward the back end of
the house (“He’s an indian for goodness sake!” I only asked.) My 2 year
old is happily slamming the bedroom door upstairs (“She’s thunder! We
need thunder ’cause it’s raining outside!” Again, I only asked). My 7
year old is bent out of shape (“They never want to play what I want to
play!” No, we cannot have Kaitlyn over this afternoon.) The 9 year
olds are running back and forth between the upstairs and the downstairs
bedrooms screaming, “Can you hear me now?” (“The commercial is totally
hysterical, Mom!” I didn’t ask this time.) I look at the clock and see
that the play date has an hour and a half to go and so do I, because
thunder just pooped!
– posted by Liz @
9/02/2003 03:38:00 PM
