being a dolt

June 8, 2006 | Filed Under ordinary 

kindermusik creative extraordinaire, molly mcginn, posted this a couple of days ago and henry has only just today gotten around to watching it. i don’t know if i’ve heard him laugh so constantly for a long time, if ever. we watched it together three times and then spent about ten minutes doing our own series of silly walks. even jude came up with a very dizzy silly walk that involved jumping while running in a circle.

in a more recent post on molly’s blog there is a comment from darcie about using a silly walk to motivate a kiddo to do the less interesting tasks in the day. i was reminded of cohen’s book, (not weston’s, cohen’s!) playful parenting, which i’m in the middle of a re-read (enjoying it more this time around, too, as i’ve actually got a good candidate for most of the suggestions in the books now!) this week, month, whatever it takes. the book really excites me when i read it. not only is it full of great ideas for connecting with kids in creative ways, it is also an encouraging reminder to actually sit down and play with your children without dragging the chore of being a responsible and boring adult into the mix. shooting stars to tulip girl for the first recommendation of the read.

it may seem to be ridiculous (and it most likely is) and you may not feel like you want to bumble around like an imbecile but it really does make the medicine go down, as it were. a “silly walk” to the kitchen to wash the dishes, down the hall with the laundry to put away, into the yard to dig through the weeds brings a smile to the lips of my extraordinarily beautiful boys (and some outright guffawing, too) as they join in and forget that they wanted to be doing something else at the time. it’s also a lot easier on the mouth than whistling, no?

Comments