Tune in and turn off...

After 7 long years of struggling to parent my children, I have had an epiphany!

To be a great parent is to shut down the frontal lobe of the brain and just go with "it".
It's so simple yet it was so freakin' hard for me to do, let alone discover.

Todays kids are over-booked, bogged down with work (if you're in the world of Yeshiva there's both English and Hebrew work), and expected to be motivated with crazy amounts of activities until their little heads hit the pillow.  Every parent magazine is guilting me into a crafts nightmare.  They all boast their fun activities with the kids...create anything out of a toilet paper roll....blah blah blah.  Granted there is a time for all of that but I draw the line at making fun shapes with food...a boat made of hot dogs, carrots, and pretzels is when I say WHEN.

NPR news was just reporting the "importance of teaching your 12 month old a new language".  I get that the whole education crap is great and people want to build an uber-cyborg child ready to take on the white house at 12 but  personally I give up.  The summer is meant for silly fun, not lessons in Fencing for your 4 year old.

My childhood was nothing if not fun...and I was rarely watched.  A quick itinerary of my average day consisted of; a pick up hockey game with neighborhood kids, peeling bark off of trees, throwing rocks at glass windows of a nearby abandoned warehouse, debating who knew the best swear words, hikes to find ancient arrow heads near the reservoir, freaking out another friend with a ghost story, walking to Jim's Variety for lemon heads, making up MAD LIBS with fowl words, and so much more.  We made our own fun.  The TV, which was non- existant in my apartment, was not on.  I spent my days and nights exploring my world and creating mischief and mayhem whenever and where ever.

It's now Thursday and my crazy crew will soon be home from camp.  My plan is to turn on the sprinkler, grill something, and put my brain on auto pilot.  Can't wait to see what creative mischief the Goldman crew comes up with...I already know it will require patience and a Swiffer.