Helplessly Devoted to You!

     I wish I had taken a picture of my just turned ten-year-old learning to cut his meat for the first time. Not only did he saw at it like a novice lumberjack, he risked slicing his palm open by holding the sharp side of the blade up. Of course, his dad and I corrected him and demonstrated how to do it properly, resulting in the blade turned right-side down but still hacking away at it.
     But I learned a lesson while teaching him the proper way to cut his meat. His dad and I have done too much for him. We have skated around teaching him basic life skills through avoidance, impatience, or  just downright laziness. In turn, he has exploited our reluctance to make him independent, enjoying letting us do everything for him. I mean it's basic kid nature to do as little as humanely possible, unless its a fun activity like gaming or playing outside with friends. If I didn't have to adult all the time, I'd love for someone to cut my meat, hang up my clothes, and pick up after me too.
     Now our first born son is very intelligent. Not only does he excel at school, he knows how to play up his helplessness. When asked to do a new task like putting his laundry in the washing machine and turning it on, he will first try the tantrum tactic. You know, the high-pitched whine making the dogs four blocks away howl in discomfort with an added stomp of the foot or pout. And if mom, somehow isn't moved by this pathetic display of small human misery, he will opt for tactic number two - complete ineptitude. In this second attempt, he will hit random buttons on the washing machine despite being told to pull the knob out. He will vainly reach for the laundry detergent and moan and groan as he shows me he's too short to reach. After I tell him to fetch a step stool, he will then pour too much detergent in the cup, and fall down in a melted heap when I try to correct his mistakes. He's mastered helplessness. And sometimes, I fail too and let him, angrily completing whatever crappy task he mucked up.
     Now in my defense, I am a product of my environment too. Mothers of the millennium have babied their DD's and DS's, mind-washed or peer-pressured into letting them out of chores so they can experience an organic, happy, carefree childhood free of responsibilty or some other b.s.. Or I do it for him because like most modern parents, I am in a rush and it's so much faster to tie the bleeding shoe lace or pick out a matching outfit for my seven-year-old than to take the time to teach him to do it for himself. I failed them and myself. And now I am cleaning up the mess and trying to teach them some independence.
     Now, I grit my teeth and show my oldest again how to push the corn onto his fork with his knife, instead of letting him pick up the remaining pieces with his fingers. Mind you, he tried pushing the corn from the fork to the knife and nearly stabbed himself in the lips with the pointy end. I stop and make him tie and then retie his shoes when he did it too loose the first time. He picks out his own clothes and sometimes they match, and sometimes I don't care. He empties the dishwasher, sometimes making me question why he thinks my measuring cups go in the cabinet with the popcorn buckets. But he's doing things on his own, even if makes mistakes.
     I read somewhere that a lot of kids don't do chores anymore because parents either fear of can't handle when they do a craptacular job. It's part of the learning curve. Yes, he half-asses his job of vacuuming the family room and has to do it again. Certainly, he puts his pillow cases on inside out sometimes. But he crawled before he walked too. And I'm certainly stumbling on my own wobbly toddler feet through parenthood. But we are learning together.

Gifting Time

     Something about tearing down the calendar and tacking up the new one, the giant one in the laundry room, shifts my spring cleaning into high gear. I begin the New Year with a purge - out with the old, in with the new, one is silver and the other is garbage.
    But that's the problem, the other is a lot of garbage, an accumulation of broken toys, used clothes, old decorations, and other bric-a-brac accumulated over a year. Things I or my kids or my hubby felt we needed in that insane moment of impulse buying that effects us all. You know that feeling of being magnetized to the item, the itch to spend money tingling in your fingers, even though it remains in the back of the closet after an the initial first fresh from the package play or wear. But then it's like puppy love, out of sight out of mind or discarded for the new impulse buy. It's a problem, a giant, environmentally damaging problem. I was shocked to learn that last year the U.S. threw away 12.8 million tons of textile waste, filling already impacted landfills with last year's fashions. For most of us, we have a lot of ready cash and a lot of places to spend it, and even more ads and junk emails telling us to spend it. We are killing our environment with our flash-pan fashion trends that change as frequently as Taylor Swift changes boyfriends.
     And to be honest, a lot of those pieces ending up in my giant trash bag for Goodwill are presents my kids played with or wore once. Gifts people felt they or I needed to give them because it's rude not to give a present. And I'm guilty of this too - gifting people with brown sugar body wash or an evergreen candle or another knick knack for the kitchen. Gifts that say little about my friends and what they really mean to me.
     The most precious thing lately that I and a lot of people I know lack is time. Or at least quality time. Remember, those meaningful conversations we used to have with friends and significant others in our pre-smart phone days? Those coffee dates when we talked about everything and nothing instead of posting mainly nothing between sips of designer lattes and taking an ussie to prove we are together and enjoying each other's company.
     So here's an idea inspired by my lovely friend, Jennie, and her Christmas gift of a gift certificate to enjoy a paint night with her - let's gift each other time. Instead of more Bath and Body Work's lotion or a pair of earrings that may or not get worn, let's give each other a gift of our time and complete attention. And for those strapped for cash, it doesn't need to be something expensive. It can be as simple as inviting the other person over for coffee and chat at your own house. Or if you have more cash to spend, a friend's night out. Instead of buying more toys for our kids, maybe we should commit to a day at the park where the phone stays in the pocket, or a round of mini-golf. Something they enjoy and will cherish and always have as a precious memory.
     These gifts of time mean even more in our busy modern world. It means we are consciously taking time to show that our friends and loved ones are important to us. That they have value in a world that somedays seems cheap and valueless. Honestly, I'd love to even have someone gift me a mom's night in to watch Downtown Abbey reruns and drink wine with a friend while the hubby takes the kids to Grandma's for dinner - two gifts in one.
     Maybe someone can invent a e-business - the Amazon of Time where people schedule dates with friends and signifiant others but have to commit to a date with a penalty for wiggling out of it without a good excuse. A website with gift certificates for events or a calendar showing fun local things to do where you can pencil yourself in with a reminder text to the phone.
     In our consumer culture, we throw so much away. And I'm afraid that our relationships are one of those things. We are not only hurting our environment but ourselves.
     So forget the gift wrap and the blanket for the couch. Wrap a gift that means more - a gift of yourself and your time. The best gift of all.