Kid games and missed opportunities

Walking home from the parade today, we ran across some fresh horse dung on the sidewalk, a relic from a participant. Not a very common thing here in the mini-burbs, and I contemplated stopping and examining it, having the kids look at it more closely to figure out what horses eat. Ok, they probably know what horses eat, but it's still a bit of a lesson in discovery. As Douglas Adams once said of Mark Carwardine and all fellow zoologists in his book "Last Chance to See" (I highly recommend it), we're big on scat. We get positively euphoric over scat. (I tried to find the exact quote, but my copy of the book has been on loan so long I can't remember who I leant it to).

But, a man was already cleaning it up, lots of parents were walking by avoiding it like the plague, and my two oldest were eating popsicles. I declined the opportunity, yet I still regret it.

Does that make me a good mom, or a bad one? Does it really matter?

Later in the day, A and I played a game of, "What does this look like now?" while enjoying some chunks of canteloupe. For those of you not running with the toddler crowd, the rules are simple: take a bite off of the melon chunk, and ask Parent what the mangled mess resembles. Repeat with same chunk of melon. Eventually, the piece gets so small, Parent finds it useful to answer, "It looks like something that should be eaten up right away." Repeat until all melon remnants are eaten. It was a fun exercise in imagination and communication. But it was messy, and did not promote polite eating habits.

But, hey, so what? Sometimes you just gotta let kids be kids. And sometimes you gotta let yourself be a kid, too. Otherwise, you really miss out on a lot.

I shoulda picked up the poop.