Swinging

There are so many ways in which I adore my time with my daughters.  I love reading Elsie books, and telling her stories about my own childhood.  I love painting and sketching with her in the room that used to be our dining room.  It has been overtaken by our crafts!  I love singing to Lucia, and bouncing her up and down, talking for her like some crazy caricature to make Elsie laugh.  I love taking the girls in to Boston on the bus or subway, for ambitious days out.  I love taking them to the park.

I do not love playing pretend or pushing children on swings.  A couple of years ago, I decided to draw a boundary around these loathed activities.  I flat-out refused to participate.

When Elsie tries to enlist my participation in her fantasy games, I gently explain to her, no, I don't enjoy pretend.  She should play it, because she likes it, but if she wants to play with me, we have to find something we'll both enjoy instead, like a book, a project, or cooking.  At this point, she always tries to convince me that she's not playing PRETEND, she is playing REAL.  I decline again, telling her I don't much like to play real, either.

In the comfort of our living room, it is easy for me to refuse to pretend that I am a princess or a fairy or the little sister in a family.  At the park, it is far more conspicuous and a little uncomfortable to tell Elsie, "No, honey, I'm sorry, but I don't push big girls in swings."  

"Why not?" Asks her friend.

"Because I don't like it."  I answer.  I feel a little like a child myself, turning her nose up at her vegetables.

It escapes no one that I am the ONLY mom at the park who won't schlep over to the swings to push "higher!" and "HIGHER!" for a half an hour.

"I come to the park to knit and to talk with my friends."  I explain to Elsie.  "Go play!" 

She does.  Sometimes on one of the many fixtures that she can operate herself.  Other times, a friend will offer to push Elsie on the swing when her mean mom won't do it.  I thought, when I instituted a strict mommy-doesn't-do-swings policy at the age of two or three, that Elsie would figure out how to swing on her own in short measure.  She didn't.  There were many months of frustration on the park swings.  Until last week, when I emerged onto my porch to see this:

"Guess who pushed me to get me started?" Elsie shouted, from her swing, pumping herself higher and higher.

"Who?" I asked.

"NOBODY!"  She replied, gleefully.  "Not even one person!"