Writing with Children
As I write, two little boys crawl over the computer, throw toy soldiers at my screen (which currently harbors a few dents), and one shouts in my face that the other one is playing with his toy guitar which I deem fair because he put it down about an hour ago. The guitar playing is accompanied by nonlyrical singing which, while maybe not music to anyone else’s ears, bring a big smile to my face and I encourage him to play on. All of this might not make for the best writing scenario, but it’s what I’ve got and hey, I’ll take it a million times over.
I return to my writing after making one boy apologize to the other, then I straighten the crooked guitar while being shot with a green pistol. I catch a child from nearly plummeting off his chair, then restraighten the guitar (because apparently no one can play a crooked guitar). They tell each other to talk nice, and I adjust a fake microphone and straighten the guitar one more time. (Apparently we’re also on a music kick). I decide that this post is aptly titled because I now write it around one boy as he sits squarely in my lap to completely cover up the screen while making several typos with his feet. I set him down, wipe his nose, and listen to my daughter practice for her acting class in the next room.
I threaten to take them in and watch Diego, to which they enthusiastically agree and my plan backfires. I debate whether my post or my sanity matters more, choose my post, and continue typing while being shot again and watching a rubber ducky bounce along beside my screen. I tell the boys today isn’t bath day, reminding them of the disaster they created the other night while taking a bath, which is another term for trying to move all of the water from inside of the tub to the outside. I get stepped on because mothers make perfect ladders for climbing onto tables, watch one son have a conversation with a small green soldier, and narrowly save my computer cord from being pulled out of the plug box because somewhere down the road it suffered wire damage and is currently held together with electric tape.
One boy is telling me he needs blocks right now, and the other is happily playing with blocks he didn’t put away last time we cleaned up. He uses a pair of toy binoculars to fish like Little Bear off of the table, and says he caught a whale which they both argue over. I try unsuccessfully to remind them that the whale is imaginary and therefore easy to share, but my argument is ignored. A chair falls over, one boy laughs, and the other kicks the wall with a grin on his face. I continue writing, hoping if I document it long enough, the boys will eventually fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion.
Nothing of the sort is happening in the foreseeable future. I type to the lullaby of a toy cash register while one boy wields a nerf sword and swings it toward my head despite the reminder that if I am unarmed, I am not to be considered a target. Somehow he takes it to mean that he is suppose to try and chop off my head. Lucky for me, my head stays intact, though I am now typing with a headache. I pause briefly to help sew the edge of a toy fish, pull a stuck ninja from the unforgiving clutches of a dump truck’s front seat, and straighten a crooked guitar once more.
A dragon puppet is thrown on my lap and I am asked to entertain. This is one of those mommy instances I can’t turn down, because while the dragon is my sons’ favorite toy, it is also mine and the chance to play with them is too great to pass up. So the writing is set aside, the twins are entertained, and I try to remember if I wrote anything even remotely understandable on my post. Oh, and I straighten a crooked guitar again.