I’m No Fun

I’m no fun. Others might argue because I smile and laugh between the hours of 7:00 a.m and 8:00 p.m. But make no mistake, I will not be the spark at your party. By 9:00 p.m. the moisture is gone from my eye sockets and my feet get icy. If you throw a blanket over me, it’s tantamount to hitting an off switch.

But I’m not much fun in the day either.

Other parents seem happy to play with their kids. School was cancelled today and my son asked me to play Lego with him. But no, I had chores waiting for me and those were vastly more tempting than hunching over a table of bright plastic and attempting to build something. It’s just not in me.

My husband is playful. It comes naturally to him. As I type, the two of them are playing Lego Star Wars on the Wii.

This dynamic doesn’t seem unusual in families. I know other mothers who have no interest in playing. Is it to do with being the stay-at-home parent? Or is it a male versus female thing? Or does it come down to personality? Maybe it’s to do with how we are raised. I don’t remember my parents playing with me but I had older siblings to lug me around.

But then, parent has only recently become a verb. You can’t just be a parent, you have to do it.

I might be the only mother that doesn’t have a calendar full of extra-curricular lessons and activities lined up for my child. He’s signed up for … nothing. It’s part budget-restriction and part laziness on my part. I’m waiting for him to strongly indicate an interest in something. Maybe that’s what I should be doing, tiring him out. Then he won’t be asking me to go down the basement and have a mock-battles with Nerf guns, or to arrange daily play dates for him (there’s a term that doesn’t sit well with me).

I guess I just want him to be a kid. So he spends a fair amount of time playing on his own, using his imagination or when pressed, reading books with me.

Fun is overrated.