Another non-toy toy

The boys recently located the guest room’s closet and the piles of suitcases within. They’ve been “going to the airport” for three days straight now. Will very much enjoys the packing and unpacking of things, including his brother and his-self. Ben mostly enjoys telling you that he’s going to the airport, then rolling the luggage down the hall, only to return 30 seconds later to let you know he’s come home. Mark is nearly insane with the repetition and will periodically refuse to play, offer suggestions on alternative scenarios, or pretend to sleep. This, of course, does nothing to sway the players. In fact, it might just intensify the need to have him as a participant. “Dadda!! Play Airport!!” “Mark, help me!” (those darn retractable handles) “Waaaa-aake up!!!!!!!”

I’m reading Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen. I’ve read it before and I’m now rereading it with my new book club. It’s a fantastic book with really valuable insight into attachment, connection, and healing through play. Cohen talks about how children work stuff out through their play. All the hurts, worries, anxieties, and other emotion overloads children experience daily are prime themes for the play they choose. According to Cohen, all these negative feelings are the byproduct of disconnection. By being a “playful parent”, one can reestablish that connection, and speed in the healing that comes from playing.

So, the suitcase game is obviously about separation, loss, and reuniting. Mark is finally back to a regular schedule after working CRAZY overtime hours for the past six weeks. It doesn’t take a child psychologist to see where the game comes from. Does knowing the reasons and originations of the play make it any easier to tolerate, ad nauseum? Maybe.

Plumbing problem

We woke up this morning to a sink full of dishes.   We skipped doing them last night in favor of getting to bed early.  Not unusual–the sinkfull, that is.  Since, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post,  the boys are on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, I pretty much make everything we eat from scratch.  That makes for lots of dishes and pots and pans and utensils.  We have a dishwasher (other than myself, heh) but I try not to run it more than once a day.  I also tend to need things that would otherwise be sitting in the machine, by the next meal, rather than the next day.  So, we do lots of dishes by hand.  Mark, actually, does lots of dishes by hand.  I love to cook, but have someone else clean up.  Mark likes to do dishes.  Well, I don’t know if he really “likes” it, but he often says he doesn’t mind, that it’s a ‘mindless’ job.  Hey, whatever–it’s working for me.

So, this morning when Mark dives in to the stack of pots and pans and bowls from last night, there is, strangely,  some sounds of frustration, banging of silverware, huffing about from Dear Husband.  I know the trouble is real when he stomps out of the room, then reappears with the sink plunger.  He attacks it mightily, takes apart the pipes, makes two different runs to Lowes for two different size drain snakes, but alas, we’ve got a clogged pipe.

Mark goes to work.  I call the plumber who is supposed to try and make an appearance “sometime” today.  I ignore the pile of dishes, pots, and pans as they accumulate over the course of our day–scrambled eggs, beef patties, squash fries, green beans… Finally, at around 3, the plumbing guys arrive.  (Two workers!  One, two! says Ben) Unfortunately they can’t find the blockage.  They think it must be in the line that runs around the house, further away than the 25 feet they can check with their equipment.  We’ll have to wait until tomorrow when the other guy can come with the “big” equipment.  Ugh.

So, in lieu of going to the library (our original plan for the evening), we did the dishes.  Like this:

It’s sort of like camping.  Dirty dishes in the laundry basket, tub full of suds.

The boys didn’t want the fun to end of course.

“I want to bang, Mama.” says Will.

So, they did.   It was an encore performance from the Charleston Chickens All Percussion Band. 

Let’s hope the plumber gets here soon tomorrow.  I’m going to need to wash all the “instruments” again.