Doing or being

I sometimes worry I don't do enough 'activities' with the boy. You know, like painting and sticking and gluing and glittering and engineering grand pavilions out of wooden blocks and making mud palaces in the back yard sandpit and weaving sailing ships out of willow twigs. This is usually because I'm trying to get the house straight and cook the occasional meal and hang out the washing and fit in a little light knitting and pop up to the shop to replace a loaf of bread that's gone mouldy.

Of course, I don't worry for long. There are plenty of things we do together and these days there is also plenty of time when little man is happy in his own little world in which various objects - kangaroos, teacups, elastic bands or Tigger - tend to get transported around the place in various vehicles. Together, we read stories and chop vegetables and water plants and feed chickens and go out for walks and dance around the kitchen and marvel at creepy crawlies.

Perhaps I could spend a bit more time on the 'activities'. I can feel a play-dough making session coming on soon. I need to empty all the yucky old sand out of the sandpit and might splash out on some coloured sand for us to muck about with. But a lot of things happen in the course of our days (or mornings when I'm working) together anyway, even if they're just for a few moments. I'll break off what I'm doing to read him a book or draw a picture for him to colour in (scribble on) or rescue a squashed Tigger or reassemble a tractor's trailer or throw him a bouncy ball or push him round the yard on his trike or build a tower for him to knock down.

These little moments can't be quantified as 'we spent an hour painting' or 'we made three glittery pictures' or 'we worked out by how many millimetres each block in a tower can deviate from the vertical alignment before the tower falls down'. But I think they all add up to something just as valuable for the little guy as long as I'm being attentive enough to realise when he wants to do something with me and when he's ok just to be with me, doing his own thing.