This morning The Childe held me to account on things I had promised to repair and he reminded me of a litany of things in the backlog that were not yet, or successfully, repaired.
He was sad and frustrated (I hadn’t yet fixed the loose, frayed thread from a not that made up a stuffed sea turtles nostril). I’ve done that now.
He wasn’t yet jaded by any of my missed deliveries. There was new hope in the form of more requests: could I cut the tag from yet another stuffy when he got home from school? Yes. (As he reenlists or gets new stuffys he’s be interested in stripping them of their tags of late.)
But then there was the toy police car, whose wheel had come off its axle (and since also lost its flashers). It was disappeared, I had hoped he had forgotten.
Then there is the blue plastic old American-style toy steam engine (if it were real, it might’ve burned wood rather than coal). Could I make another (6th or 7th) attempt to glue the cow-catcher back on? Could we try another glue? I don’t know.
There’s a helicopter which has lost a rotor blade (multiple glueings for it failed too) and a another half-dozen items that may or may not be stowed in corners by my desk or a drawer in the kitchen with some hope of resurrection or disappeared.
It is time for a reckoning, not so much with The Childe, but with myself in communicating to him the outputs of the functions of time and use: the consequences of quality of material and construction and of consideration during play, and the natural or designed end to all things. The impact of which is only mitigated by our choices, expectations, and our gratitude when noticing all we are getting what we wanted or maybe more … yeah … this isn’t all going to fly with a kindergartener. I barely have learned them truly, maybe.
I received gratitude in the form of a hug (and a kiss! on my arm!) when I affirmed his new and refreshed requests that had the most immediate of deadlines (today).