Domino Effect

I was busy doing some grown-up thing one afternoon this week when I noticed a little body pawing around a junk closet that had inadvertently been left open. She had a plastic phone jammed between her ear and shoulder and she was having a long conversation of some sort. Instead of immediately shooing her out of the closet (I mean, why punish her when it was my fault she was mildly unsupervised and that the closet was open in the first place?) I watched for a bit and then abandoned my grown-up agenda.

I sat down and played with her. Joined in the game she was already playing. Didn't try to suggest alternate activities. Didn't think about the laundry or the dishes or the bills or the internet. Just played.

She grabbed my hand and led me to her room where she was rocking her babies on the ottoman of her chair. She covered them with a blanket and we patted each one. I pretended the plastic phone rang, answered it, and handed it over to her. She said "Hi, Dada," then held it up to each baby, in turn, repeating, "Hi, Dada." She grabbed a book and pretended to read to them, then got distracted by all the books and so we sat down and read for awhile, plastic phone still in hand.

It was a domino effect, which led us from one activity to another all afternoon. We made music with water and cups, then just played with the water, banged pots and pans like drums, crawled around pretending to be animals, played hide-and-seek, and more.

And every once in awhile, she would say "hug" and wrap me up in a big bear hug or sneak in a kiss. She is very selective about affection lately, so these were prizes beyond compare.

It all left me wondering, what would have been the domino effect of the alternate path? What if I had kept on with my grown-up task instead? What are the effects of all the little choices we make throughout the day?

I know one thing for sure: parenting is a big job.