I spend a lot of time alone with my kids — a 6-year-old son, Griffin, and 4-year-old daughter, Hope. I work part-time, with part of that from home, and I’m a divorced parent, so we’re often together, just the three of us. My work schedule is something I feel incredibly grateful for, since I have no idea how other single parents manage to juggle it all — full-time jobs, raising their kids, dealing with activities and homework, and doing all the shopping, laundry, and mundane tasks that keep a household purring, or at least sputtering, along.
But all that time together has its challenges. So I’ve been stocking up on outside toys for the summer. Achilles had his spear. I've got a jump rope, a fling toss game, and some sidewalk chalk. My weapons need some sharpening, though. Because usually I’m just chasing a ball around while one, or both, of the kids gets distracted by a pile of dirt or a pointy stick. Sometimes, I offer helpful instruction: “You can’t hit the ball if you keep putting the bat on top of your head” or “There’s no tackling each other in jump rope.” And after about 2.5 minutes, the kids lose interest, I'm discouraged, and we’re left trying to figure out what to do with the next few hours.
The other day went like that. A morning of good intentions gone awry. Then we were off to do errands, and on the car ride home, my daughter fell asleep. When we pulled up to our condo, I needed to figure out what to do. If you're a parent, you know that waking her wasn’t an appealing option.
So I parked in a space near the grass of our condo, rolled down all the windows, and Griffin and I sat outside. Because we had to stay right next to the car, we couldn’t retrieve our trusty outside toys, so we made do with what we had. At first we played with his Star Wars Lego set, which he had been carrying with him, and pretended to have a battle. It’s one of Griffin’s favorite things to do, but I don’t have much stamina for pretending to blow things up. I made it longer than 2.5 minutes, but not by a lot. Now what?
There were a bunch of acorns on the hill we were perched on. I picked one up and threw it. It gave me an idea. For the next hour, Griffin would collect acorns, and we would pitch them down the slope toward the sewer grate, a few feet below. First person to get 10 in was the winner. Griffin hit 10 first but immediately decided to up it to 15, then 20, and finally 30. We both love games and enjoy a little competition so we got into it — dividing our pile of acorns evenly, each taking turns tossing them, laughing, and doing a play-by-play.
After each round, Griffin would run down the hill to collect the missed shots and run back up with his bounty. He was delighting in this little game, and the more fun he had, the more fun I had, too. When Griffin edged out a 30-29 win, he threw his hands up in the air and, with a little jump yelled, “I got 30 acorns in the sewer!”
In the last hour, all I had done was throw 29 acorns in a sewer but I felt pretty victorious too. We had made something out of nothing on that sunny afternoon. And it reminded me that sometimes those unscripted moments are the most satisfying. Lesson of week 2,250: To feel content and connected, the kids and I don’t really need all that much — sometimes all it takes is a few acorns and a sewer.
