maupuia calling

Said Matt today as we were walking up the path home, “You’re the best Dad in the world.” Said Matt immediately after that, “Of course, you’re the only Dad i have!”

I’m not, of course, the “best Dad in the world”. I’m grumpy and impatient with the kids lots. I’m tired all the time. I yell at them more than they deserve. I never make enough time to play with them.

But I am the only Dad they have, so I guess they’re kinda stuck with me.

Ah, but we have such fun sometimes. This morning I was dancing round like a fool and making up songs about them - songs about Matt eating garbage and Josh eating cat-food. They’re of an age where that sort of thing is the most fun in the world. Although Matt is of an age where he can do the “I’m so embarrassed he’s my Dad look”. As this morning.

We had all walked up to school - well, Josh and I had walked up together and Matt had run on ahead of us - and Josh and I were in the corridor putting his bag away. Matt walked past with him friends, ignoring us. Josh pipes up, completely happy to see his brother, “Hi Matt!!”. I piped up, completely wanting to make Matt and his friends look, “Hi Matt”. Matt half-waved and grimaced and walked on. But at the end of the corridor, he turned back, and gave me this wonderful little smile. Like, yeah, I am actually his Dad and he’s pretty cool with that.

Josh snuck into our bed last night. I woke to him curled up around me, his little leg draped over mine, both of us curled up on the edge of the bed. He wakes up in the morning, smiles and says, “I love you Dad”.

Moments like that, and Matt’s smile in the corridor and an unexpected comment walking up to the house.

They’re moments when they forgive you all your sins.

It was most noticeable eating dinner tonight. No loud background noise from the corner of the living room. We could all hear each other talk. And we actually did talk.

We took the tv away today. It’s sitting down here in my office, on the floor, unplugged, gray, lifeless and dull.

It’s not that I really object on a moral or philosophical level to tv. And in fact it’s going to be hard for me not being able to watch basketball and the odd programme I like. But we’d reached a stage where it was on all day. The kids would turn it on first thing in the morning, Josh sitting cross-legged on the floor entranced, and Matt slumped on the couch, barking at us to get him breakfast. Supposedly we had a policy of no tv during dinner. Too many tired, stressed nights put paid to that.

Ultimately, we used the tv as a babysitter. Allowing us a few moments - although, often, it would be much longer - of peace. A few moments of the kids not making demands on us. But it really was a cheap fix. It created more problems than it ever could solve.

The kids have progressvely been getting more angry and irritable. More passive. More insistent on tv’s privileged place in the order of their lives. A vicious cycle where that attitude manifested itself in increased bad behaviour towards each other and towards us, leading us to use tv more and more as a pacifier.

So I decided yesterday morning, after a particularly stressful time getting Matthew out the door and off to school, that just maybe not having tv would help. And today it’s gone.

I sold it to Matt that without tv we’d be able to spend more time with him and Josh. Being without a tv is going to be hardest on Deb and I. It’s no longer going to be there as an easy way to occupy the kids. Still, I have a suspicion that the problems of our tv-free-zone are going to be nicer problems than the ones we’ve been worrying about of late.

I think Kathy would be pleased though!

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