Taking Back Boredom

Son,

I want you to know that some days there just isn't much going on.  As I was thinking about what to bloggity-blog on here, you sat wearing only a diaper and your brand new sneaks (upon your insistence, of course) and endlessly dropping one of your toy tool-box screws through an empty paper towel tube.  I want to save this image in my head forever because (well, in part because as soon as you saw me with pen and paper your contentment with independent play instantly faded and you climbed into my lap to snatch the pen away) I know that someday you are going to tell me, "I'm bored!"

By the way, this is what you drew:

 

 

I remember most of my childhood (sans cable T.V. -read: Disney Channel- until my tweens) repeating the phrase, "I'm bored." To which my father would say, "What I wouldn't give to be bored again."  I didn't understand it then, but I do now.  When you are an adult with resposibilities, and perhaps children, there's no time to be bored.

 

 

So, does bored have to be a bad word?  Maybe it isn't the right word, but I want to remember the boring moments with you and Dad most.  I'm sure the internet is already rife with ephemera, and yes, I could write about more salient things like your miraculous birth story, your hospital stays and ambulance rides (when I got carsick), countless IVs and leads and monitors, your MRI, the good, the bad and the ugly of pediatric specialists, and all the worrying and waiting.  And maybe one day I will write about that (when I figure out how). 

 

But for now I will recount the boring moments when you were an infant and I held you practically all day long, when I brought you into bed in the early morning hours and we snuggled until a more decent hour (like 10 a.m.).  Or when you and me and Dad all sit on the floor and do, well, nothing in particular.  But there's laughing. Lots of laughing.  And now, my favorite part of the day when I sit on the couch with you and look out the window into the cul-de-sac and watch the winter sky turn from blue dark to black dark. 

 

 

Maybe I was never bored.  Nevertheless, one day, I hope you can find the joy in being bored.

Love,
Mom