Getting Back into Kid Mode

Not long ago, someone posted a meme on Facebook with a picture of an awesome couch cushion fort, with the caption "Building Forts: Admit it-you miss doing it". It made me think of how, when you have kids, you can get back into doing all these cool kid things, all while maintaining some sort of dignity, because you're doing it for them, after all.


Christmas recently passed, and it was the first Christmas in which Big Bro "got" it; the whole Santa, presents, countdown to Christmas morning thing. I just may have been more excited than him, but the whole season had a renewed energy to it, and it reminded me of how cool it is to have kids in your life. You can get back to "kid mode", in case you lost it along the way.


For instance, how fun is it to go to the local heritage village museum where they have miniature ride-on steam trains, and be able to walk right up and ask for a ride? I might've lined up for a ride if I was kidless (as I'm sure many do already), but I unfortunately learned to be embarrassed doing goofy stuff in public once I hit Junior High, so I know I'd be laughing nervously and playing it up so that everyone knew I was being IRONIC by being excited about riding a little train.


Now, though, I have a young son-- HE loves trains! Well! Must put my needs aside and take the little lad for a train ride. But of course I'll need to accompany him. Yes, I know, how noble of me. And, while we're at it, let's treat the dear to a second lap around the track so Dad can have a turn he can really soak in the experience.

We were in Kingston over the summer at a hotel with a water slide. Big Bro is still too small for them just yet, so I felt a little embarrassed going alone while he stayed and watched in the little pool. A little embarrassed, I said; not enough to not go several times. But I'll feel so much less like I need to avoid eye contact with the teenage lifeguard once I'm accompanying the kids.


Then there's the local enormous play gym we frequent. 3 storeys of padded climbing and sliding mayhem. It's not for everyone, I admit (even me, I avoid it like the plague on ped. days). In one area, though, there's a slide so long, you can't see the bottom from the top. Accompanying Big Bro on his sliding adventures, I ended up crashing into him as he waited for me at the bottom. Good thing it was just him. I can see the headlines now: "WOMAN IN MID-THIRTIES PLOWS INTO INNOCENT CHILDREN WHILE SLIDING"... but wait! I'm a parent! I was just accompanying my kid! The "weeeee" was for his benefit!


Go-karts. Reading in a circus tent in the living room with a flashlight. Tobogganing. Couch cushion forts! And then there are the kids' cool new Christmas presents that we got to try out. I've caught Hubs a few times enthusiastically in the zone making a block tower with Big Bro... only Big Bro was long gone.

Not all kid stuff is fun to us adults, of course-- but the stuff that is, we can now do it with heads held high, because we're doing it for the kids. Or at least that's what it looks like, which is good enough for me.