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Quality Time
by Joseph Arechavada |
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I'm sitting on the sofa with my two-year-old son, watching a "Thomas the Tank Engine" DVD. For those of you without benefit of knowing any small children, or who were fortunate enough to raise them prior to the advent of the ‘video age', you are spared witnessing any of this repetitive drudgery. Actually, most of these programs and videos are not bad -- if you only have to watch them once or twice. Unfortunately, you must watch them dozens of times sitting with your child, to the point you have not only memorized the story, you have memorized the dialog as well. Thus, boredom sets in, and your mind starts to wander to all those things you should be doing, but are not getting done right now as you sit watching this for the thirty-seventh time.
And God forbid there should be any songs in
the thing. It is guaranteed that the most inane one will lodge itself
permanently in your brain. There are times when a migraine, or even a
brain tumor would be preferable. Sitting through a boring meeting? Stuck
in traffic? There it will be, running through your mind, torturing you,
over and over...
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friend. Some people started singing it not knowing what it was, And they'll continue singing it forever just because... [Repeat ---- endlessly]
I recently read that episodes of
"Barney", the purple dinosaur on PBS, were shown to Iraqi
detainees in American custody to "soften them up". I can
believe it. Sit through just ten minutes of one episode and you will
understand completely. It would break the hardiest of souls.
But in any event, at least I get to sit with
my son Alejandro. Really, he insists. Every night when I arrive home
from work, I walk in the door and suddenly, I become his
possession, his toy. He lives for this moment, when Daddy gets home and
is at his beck and call. He attaches himself to me, much like the remora
to the shark. It doesn't last very long, at most an hour. Then he
releases me to go about his playful business.
But it is nice to have him cuddle up to me,
to want to be with me. My older son is thirteen, at that age when being
to close to another man, and God forbid a parent, is just not suitable.
Parents embarrass teenagers. It's just one of those things that we come
to expect with the territory. But at two, Alejandro is still
unembarrassed by Dad, and willingly sits with me, cuddled up close and
loving me.
It makes all those late night sicknesses and
wake-ups, the temper tantrums, and dirty diaper changes worth it, as I
smile and put my arm around him and continue watching the screen.
Oh great...it's up to the part where James
saves the big red balloon. Again.
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