photo via Honor Creative
Barton and Scout play this bizarre game called “I Can’t, I’m Working Now,” and it cannot be healthy. And it’s probably an indication that we need to re-evaluate our parenting. (And by “we” I absolutely mean “Barton” needs to re-evaluate his parenting, obviously.)
The sad, depressing game is literally played as follows:
Scout goes and gets her hot pink Minnie Mouse “peter” (her word for computer) and sits down with it in her lap.
Scout calls out, “Daddy! Ask me if I want to play with you!”
Barton says, “Hey Scout, will you please play with me? Pretty pleeeeeease?”
Scout screams back, “NO! I can’t! I’m WORKING RIGHT NOW. And I have to go to my office!!!” Then she storms off to her “office” (underneath the kitchen table) and furiously pounds on her plastic laptop, all the while giggling hysterically to herself.
I was watching this game from afar the other day and was all like “Ha ha! That’s hilarious! Wait, what? This game is actually kind of effed up. This game makes me v v v sad.”
Another questionable game they play is “Jail.” The title is pretty self-explanatory: Scout brutally sentences people to the penitentiary (sometimes with no chance of parole) and then she throws her head back and belly laughs with the greatest joy I’ve ever seen a human being display.
“Hey, mister! You have been a BAD, BAD BOY!” (Scout sometimes calls me a “bad, bad boy” as well, which is weird, but maybe I just need to do a better job of not looking like a hermaphrodite with my sweatpants, low bun and sports bras that make my boobs concave.)
“I’m gonna put you in JAIL! I’m gonna put you in JAIL for a long, LONG TIME!!!” she adds for good measure.
When she’s feeling particularly dominant, she will throw in, “And NO ONE can help you!!!” That last line is exceptionally terrifying and worrisome to me, but who am I to interfere with her brilliant imagination and intricate role-playing? The kid might win an Academy Award someday and honestly, I have no qualms about being supported financially by my famous offspring.
A slightly less troublesome game is “Ice Cream Shop.” She will roll out her ice cream cart (best purchase EVER from Target, fyi Moms—she is obsessed) and she’ll say to Barton, “I’ll be the owner, you be the ma’am. Hello, ma’am, what can I get you today?” (Again with the gender confusion… maybe it’s time we bought her some sort of anatomy book?)
“I’ll take vanilla, please,” Bart will say.
“NO, DADDY! Mint ice cream is for boys. So you can have mint.”
Scout’s mentality on ice cream flavors borders alarmingly on gender discrimination: in her mind, boys order mint and chocolate (“the yucky flavors”), and the coveted vanilla and strawberry (her favorite flavors) are reserved only for girls. Honestly, I see nothing wrong with this system and hope one day she grows up to change way men and women consume soft-serve.
Lastly, probably her most favorite game of all is “Restaurant.” (Basically, it seems Scout is going to grow up to work either in the food service industry or be a prison guard/parole officer; the anticipation is killing me!)
For “Restaurant,” she will welcome her guest and immediately get right down to biznass, which for me consists of: “Hello, ma’am. Okay, here is your wine!” And she’ll hand me a tiny blue teacup filled with nothing but air and false hope—what a tease, that Scout Simmons.
Then I’ll take a moment to ponder what it says about me/my life that my three-year-old innately knows I would obviously want some wine at her “restaurant.” And then I ponder some more about the time in Starbucks when she turned to me in line and said, “you can get your wine, and I can get my chocolate milk!” I had to explain to her that mommy orders coffee at Starbucks, not wine, and then I had to explain to everyone around me that I wasn’t an alcoholic. But that’s neither here nor there.
Honestly, there are more times than I’d like to admit where I wish she’d just “leave me alone and play by herself” so I could fold laundry or meal prep or write. And I know for a fact Barton (who is truly Super Dad the way he tirelessly plays with her) would sometimes much rather be working or watching #sports games instead of being locked away in the bathroom (read: his jail cell) waiting for his tiny, sassy prison guard to grant him some mercy. But lately I’ve been trying to completely, whole-heartedly revel in her brilliant, creative, inventive, ridiculously fun imagination—and savor it. HARD.
Because the day will come when it’ll take more than a pair of imaginary handcuffs or plastic ice-cream cones or blue teacups to really entertain her.
The day will come when I won’t hear waves of giggles floating down from upstairs while I’m cooking dinner, true belly laughs from her arresting Barton or stomping off to her “office” with her hot pink “peter.”
There will be a day when staying home on a Friday night playing make-believe with me would be social suicide for her, and instead she’ll race out of this house as fast as she can to meet up with her friends at the movies.
My friend Sarah posted this today and I couldn’t love it more, especially for my season of life and especially for this holiday season: “Love doesn’t yell at the kids to get out of the way, but is thankful they are there to be in the way.”
Scout Elizabeth Simmons, you can stay in my way as long as you want, you crazy, smart, fun, feisty little restaurateur/ice cream lady/parole officer, you.