Children Have the Best Timing...

Back in the 1980's when I was growing up, I remember my mother feeding me breakfast, and then sending me outside to play. It didn't matter to her that we were the only house on our entire street and that there wasn't a single child within a 3 mile radius for me to play with. If I came back inside, I was immediately ushered out again and threatened with a spanking should my bottom cross the threshold again before she called for me. On good days, I was also given a cookie on my way out. I don't remember ever finding this remotely traumatizing, but then, I am in therapy right now.

Us parents nowadays, we don't have it nearly as easy. Gone are the days of mothers' threatening their naughty children with "The Wooden Spoon", and don't even think of giving your defiant little hellions a smack on the ass with one! It's also become harder and harder to send your kids outside for any considerable length of time. Having my son in the house spreading his mess around makes it nearly impossible for me to get anything accomplished. I don't get the hours of uninterrupted bliss my mother got while I was outside playing.

So, you can imagine my excitement when I saw my son's friends outside playing street hockey. My joy only grew when my son ran downstairs, grabbed his goalie pads, put on his boots and dashed outside to join them. With the house suddenly kid free, I had an overwhelming desire to make the most of it...and so did my husband.

If dressing in a hurry were an olympic sport, I'm pretty sure there'd be plenty of parents in line for the gold medal. The sound of crying and winter boots stomping up the front stairs had us dressed and rushing downstairs in record breaking time. Thankfully, he was far too agitated to notice my flushed cheeks or inside out Matthew Good t-shirt. As a mother, you feel badly when your child is hurt and crying...usually. I can't really say I felt that bad for him today. Yes, I'm sure a small rubber puck hitting you in the nose hurts, but the fact that his nose wasn't broken or even bleeding was just disappointing. It probably would have been more motherly of me to give him a hug and tell him it would stop hurting soon, but that's not what I did. Instead, I lifted his face, inspected his blood-free nose and blurted out "You're not even bleeding!" To stop him crying, I handed him a glass of Coke, told him to drink it and go back outside.

I'm thinking of writing a book on parenting.