Now that we have an 8 year old in the house, we have a new (time-saving) policy that involves him reading a book to the 4 year old at bedtime. He gets his school reading done for the day, Meyer gets a book read to him and either mom or dad get to snuggle in the bed between them both as well as be the recipient of most of the kicks they intend for each other. Doesn’t it sound special?
Gabe puts the boys to bed most nights but I do it on weekends or whenever he’s out of town. One night last week, I let Asher pick out a book to read to Meyer. As he was pulling books from our (rather extensive) bookshelf, I was yelling out things like “NO BERENSTAIN BEARS BOOKS” and “Pick something shorter!” when he pulled a Phineas and Ferb book from the shelf. His dad happened to be standing right there and gave me a nod of approval – his signal that it wasn’t the kind of book that was going to make this busy mom pull her hair out (i.e. it wasn’t too long with too many hard words).
It was this. How charming – and just in time for Valentine’s Day, right?
I’m gonna cop to enjoying hearing Asher call the boy Candance loves Germy instead of Jeremy over and over again no matter how many times I corrected him, BUT … bedtime is at 8pm and that means quitting time is at 8pm and I am not one of those people who is patient with overtime. I mean, as a parent, overtime is constant anyway. But if I think it’s finally quitting time, it better damn well be quitting time.
So anyway, this book went on and on and eventually, Gabe came in and sat on the end of the bed, drawn in no doubt by the preposterousness of how long this reading situation was going on. He started to play around with a few of the 812 stuffed animals Asher keeps on his bed.
He picked up one and waved it in the air at me while Asher continued reading.
“Guess what the boys call this one?” he mouthed.
I shrugged.
“Flat Dog.”
I shrugged again.
Then he turned it so the dog was facing me, like a real dog would. Like nose first. And then I saw it. FLAT DOG.
I mean, look at it in comparison to some normal stuffed dogs.
I mean this thing is FLAT. And featureless. It’s like he was designed by that elderly lady in Spain who painted over the 19th century fresco of Jesus because she thought she could do a better job. Remember that?
And the boys named it Flat Dog. Literal boys, they are.
So then that thing happened that used to happen when you were in church and you weren’t supposed to be laughing. You remember? The fact that you weren’t supposed to be laughing only made it worse and you laughed so hard, so silently, that your belly hurt and tears started to leak from your seeing orbs?
Gabe and I were both vibrating with silent laughter as he continued to wave Flat Dog around in the air. The boys were glancing up at us in confusion wondering what was so funny.
“Keep going. It’s nothing. Finish, finish.” I gasped.
Which about 10 years later, he did – and now I’m packing him up for college.
But the point is that I have no real point. Except maybe that sometimes (almost always), we get impatient with our children and just want these tasks to be completed already, even as we know that later we’ll be the very people (just like everyone else) who will complain that we wish we’d taken it slower, that we wish we’d enjoyed it all a little more when they were little, that we’d stopped to smell the plastic imitation flowers along the way.
I know I’m gonna be that person, and yet I can’t stop myself from hurrying stuff along. Hurry homework, hurry dinner, hurry bath, hurry bedtime.
And if it wasn’t for simple psychological tricks like my husband’s special “Flat Dog Therapy,” I might never slow down and just enjoy the moments.
So if you also struggle with hurryitis when it comes to your kids, maybe go get yourself a Flat Dog too. Or just a really silly husband. I think either one will work.
P.S. Sadly I don’t think you can buy this particular Flat Dog. I think he was given to Asher at the hospital after he had surgery. But if you’d like to arrange some surgery for your kids at Mobile Infirmary, you might be able to get one. FOR FREE. What a deal, right?
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