We've evolved so amazingly far we replaced man-eating, saber toothed tigers with this:
_10-15-2009.jpg)
No climbing on trees. No climbing on fences. Definitely no playing baseball in the empty field next door. No riding bikes in the complex. No riding bikes outside the complex because it's not safe. No scooters at the playground, no climbing on the outside of the playground equipment...in fact, better be safe and just take a parent with you ON the playground equipment because she needs to repeat everything you two are doing so you (my dear diabetic bound child) are on equal footing vocabulary wise with the rest of the kids whose moms are following them around going "Tree! A tree has roots. Roots!".
Don't be so silly as to think that just because you can't play outside, you will be allowed to play inside. No jumping, no wrestling, no pretending your bunkbed is a pirate ship. The grownups living downstairs don't pay thousands of dollars a month to hear thumping and rolling above their heads. No trumpeting like an elephant, but you are allowed to watch a show on Netflix called Babar...at least it's about an Elephant. But no acting out Babar after the episode is over, it's too noisy. Here, have a capri sun instead. No splashing in the bathtub. No galloping up and down the stairs on all fours like you're a gorilla. The stairs have germs, and you're disturbing the grownups who are trying to smoke goshdarnit.
Grown ups are also the reason you can't ride your bike through the complex, because they don't want to have to turn their music down, or their cell phone off and watch where they're driving. It's just not safe.
Since I'm apparently a country mom, (something I didn't quite realize until I moved) I missed the memo on The-Book-Of-Rules that runs city life. My kids scaled cliffs, skidded down boulders, climbed trees, and did all manner of hooligan-ish things before I realized they were "un-safe". I get talked to, yelled at or cited by someone at least once a day for something we're doing that's rude or unsafe. ...sometimes my kids are particularly bouncy and they get in trouble more often than that. I was raised to follow the rules, and be polite, so you know...I'm only freaking out just slightly. But I'm so confused. What am I supposed to do with three little boys?
In an attempt to find the answer, I started asking other moms around me what they do with their kids. Turns out that's a really stupid question. Like so stupid, they don't really have an answer. "um...homework? TV?". My kids have a different answer, "Mommmm, you have to buy us an xbox, pleeeeeeeease". Sigh. I take my kids outside to play, and within five minutes they're glued to the open front door of a friend, trying to watch them play Call Of Duty.
I think I need to just leave more often. At least I have the luxury of using a large, fossil-fuel consuming beast to transport me somewhere children are allowed to do this little thing called exercise. It's one of the thousand times a day I wish I wasn't pregnant. I'm trying adjust, I'm trying to be that peppy mom who has no problem driving all over the city to organized activities...not that my kids think I'm succeeding, but I'm growing another one of those outlandish humans that annoy the crap out of adults, and quite frankly that takes energy...and iron, something I'm a little short on at the moment.
I'm sure part of it is a bit of homesickness mixed with a dollop of culture shock. There are millions of people who adore living in the city. And I do love how fast I can clean my apartment, it's so small and not surrounded by a mountain of dirt.
And at least we don't get in trouble for using the pool....too often. ;-)
0 comments:
Post a Comment