Kid Amnesiac

I am just back from a business trip to Boston, a trip that was delayed 4 hours outbound due to snow and one full day inbound due to snow. Oh, and that also involved 2.5 hours on the tarmac in New Jersey when crew members could not arrive in time because they were delayed on their inbound trip due to—say it with me—snow.

The great irony in all of this is that while “The Great Blizzard of ’10” yielded a whopping inch, maybe two, in Boston, the under-reported storm in Louisville dumped 7-8. Hosting an all-hands business trip  in Boston in February. What could possibly go wrong? Then again, DC would have been worse, and who could have predicted that?

Anyway, three and a half days after saying good-bye to Simon, I was very happy to say hello again. As was he, something he demonstrated by being affectionate and clingy with me and mean and dismissive to Matt.

You go upstairs and work, Daddy. Don’t come down here with me and Mommy.

It’s understandable why he wouldn’t want Matt around. After all, three is crowd when you are racing the train to school and chasing away werewolves along the way. Seriously, that was his game. We raced a train to the kitchen (school) and back, and periodically had to yell at or “zap” werewolves that were hiding in our light fixtures.

We’re seeing more of this type of imaginative play lately, and it’s a challenge for me as I am not a spontaneous, free-flowing kind of person. Then again, I know how important it is for kids, and I’ve just read about its central role in developing cognitive and interpersonal skills. So fantasy play it is.

Three years ago, Simon taught me how to sit down and enjoy life’s quieter moments. Now I think he’s going to teach me, or re-teach me, the value of unbuttoning my imagination. Wordsworth had it right: The child is the father of the man. Or woman.