A Strange Thing Happened…

It was Sunday, around noon. I was starting to prepare lunch – nachos! There was a knock at the door.

I was still in my PJs and bra-less! This was the first Sunday in as long as I could remember that we didn’t get up, eat and go get groceries/run errands. Who the heck is knocking on our door?

I open the door to find 2 pint-sized kids standing there in bike helmets. I was confused. Were they lost? “Hi!” I said. “Are you ok?”

“Yes, is Nick here?”

OHHHHH! You want to know if my son can come out to play? I vaguely remember this tradition. It’s something my generation did – played with neighbourhood kids in the street until dark and our parents called us home for dinner. I didn’t realise kids still did this?

“Sure, come in. Niiiick! Your friends are here!” Nick (and The Mechanic) had met Sam and Charlie (and their dad) last weekend in one of the pools in the complex. About 10 minutes later the little girl, who hadn’t spoken 2 words, left. “Is she ok on her own or should you go with her?” I asked Sam, the older of the two. “She’s fine. She’s just going home” he replied.

About an hour or so later, the dad came looking for his son, who still hadn’t taken his bike helmet off but was completely engrossed in playing Lego with my son.

I wasn’t sure whether to be happy because there was another kid in our complex that Nick could become friends with and play outside with (or inside with) or shocked that someone who had met The Mechanic once would let his kids go around to his place to play with his kid. I remember long afternoons and weekends playing on our swing set, in our pool, playing touch football out the front with the neighbourhood kids and riding our bikes through all the parks and paths around our neighbourhood. This generation doesn’t seem to get the opportunity to do those things. Where we live doesn’t really lend itself to the opportunity, being in a unit. I hope one day we’re in a family-friendly neighbourhood where he can do that, where all the parents and neighbours look out for each other and all the kids. Where he can play outside and maybe avoid the addiction to TV, computer games and internet (but it might be too late for that).

Do your kids play outside?

Linking up with Jess for IBOT!

 

 

p.s. Have you entered my Scarf Girl scarf give-away yet? Why not? Entries open until Tuesday 3rd of December!

Wordless Wednesday : The Skate Park Edition

Linking up with Trish at My Little Drummer Boys for Wordless Wednesday

Talking To The Dead

Something started in our house, a few weeks (months?) ago, and at first I sort of encouraged it, but now I’m starting to grow concerned about it.

A little history – my husband’s dad passed away less than a year before I met hubby. I never got to meet him, so our son certainly didn’t get to. At least, not in this life or on this side. Then my dad passed away when Nick was just 2.5 years old. I was sad for what I had lost, but devastated for what my son was lost. He was now grandfatherless. No little boy should be grandfatherless.

Recently he has started talking about his “grandpa” in reference to the mechanic’s dad. There is a picture of him on our book shelf, and one of Nick and my dad (his “granddad”). He talks about where his grandpa lives, what he and his grandpa have done, often says, “I really miss my grandpa” and the other day he asked me if we could see him, or if he was going to call us. When I said he wasn’t going to call, he got really upset.

I haven’t had a chance to talk to his teacher, but I am guessing that someone at school may do a lot with their grandpa and Nick is taking their stories in and projecting them back into his own stories? Or perhaps he just has a really good imagination? Or maybe they’re talking about families at school?

This past weekend it started to get a bit out of control. It was no longer just a passing comment, but full blown conversations and melt downs over not being able to see his grandpa. He blamed his tantrum at soccer on missing his grandpa. I tried to use it to my advantage, and said, “Well I don’t think your grandpa would have been happy with you having a tantrum, do you?” I am not sure it really worked.

Last night when I got home from work he had apparently been talking for 10 minutes about how he missed his grandpa. Then he said his grandpa was dead, but his grandad was alive. I sat down and told him his granddad was not alive, but that I so wished he was. At this point, I was in tears. How do you explain this to a 5 year old? How do you explain that other kids get to have grandpas who take them to do fun things? I told him he was lucky because he had nanna, and baba, but I am not sure that was much consolation.

I’m seriously to the point of wondering if we need a psych/counsellor to deal with it?

But first, I’m reaching out to my fellow bloggers, my fellow IBOTers, to ask for your input?

Have you been through this? What do we do?