When I wake up in the morning, one of my first thoughts is, what do I need to get done today? I don’t think that thought has ever gone through Aurora’s head. She is much more likely to think, what fun thing can I do today?
When I tackle something on my to-do list, I am likely thinking, how can I get this done most quickly? Not Aurora. She’s is likely going to think, how can I make this more interesting ?
Which way is better, mine or hers?
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s both.
Every year my kids, Ike, and I join Ike’s parents, siblings, and their kids in a mountain cabin for a week of peaceful chaos. Yes, I know that’s an oxymoron, but I don’t know how else to describe twenty plus people in a rural escape-from-real-life setting, all squashed together enjoying God’s creations.
One day at the cabin, we had finished dinner and the kids were each enjoying a bowl of chocolate pudding after the meal. As the kids ate, the adults began preparations for bedtime. I became aware at some point that I couldn’t find Aurora. I asked Ike if he could find her so we could get her in the shower before bed. He found her in the basement with her younger cousin, and they were finger painting the walls with chocolate pudding. Yep.
Why would a nine-year-old paint walls with pudding? She absolutely knew better. I’m not in her head, and I wasn’t actually in the room, so I can only guess. But I’m pretty sure she just thought, Do you know what this pudding reminds me of? Paint. Let’s see if it works like paint. That sounds fun.
That sounds like fun. These are words Aurora lives by. Ironically, I think this is one of her strengths actually. She is good at making things more fun. Sometimes ‘more fun’ just isn’t a good idea.
Every day my children have chores they are in charge of getting done sometime during the day. Like most children, Aurora does not like chores. Chores are boring. Chores are decidedly not fun.
Emptying the dishwasher is one of the chores I expect my children to do. Monday is Aurora’s dish day, so one Monday morning I reminded Aurora that she needed to empty the dishwasher before she could be done with all of her responsibilities. She resisted, as usual, but wandered over to the dishwasher after some gentle force from me. As she opened the dishwasher, her eyes immediately were drawn to the tongs. I could see her brain working.
Oooh, tongs. Tongs are fun. Tongs are good at grabbing things. Grabbing things with tongs is way more fun than emptying the dishwasher.
She then proceeded to empty the dishwasher by picking up one item at a time with the tongs and putting it away. As I’m sure you can imagine, this process required MUCH more time than just using your hands. And I’m sure it was MUCH more fun. After about ten minutes, the dishwasher was about half emptied, and Aurora got bored. She left the half-full dishwasher, taking the tongs with her, and went to find something more fun to pick up. Did she finish emptying the dishwasher? Yes…eventually. But she definitely didn’t have as much fun the second time around when she didn’t have the tongs.
Another chore she is often asked to complete is putting away 100 toys in the basement. The kids pretty much had free reign of the basement because it was just unfinished open space. One Saturday I sent her down to clean at 10:00. At 10:40 I realized that she had never come back upstairs. I went down just to check and make sure she was still working hard. She had put on a pair of roller-skates.
Naturally.
She was skating to each item she wanted to put away, picking it up, and skating to where it needed to go. Sometimes she would add in an extra lap around the basement. It was obvious that she had considered her assigned chore and thought to herself, You know what would make this more fun? Roller-skates.
Was she doing the job? Well…yes, but it sure wasn’t efficient. Did she manage to spice up her boring chore? I grudgingly admit that, yes, her way was more fun.
The first thing my children do when we get home from church is change into less formal attire. One Sunday we came home from church, and Aurora stripped her dress off before she had even walked up the stairs to her room. She left her dress lying on the floor in the entryway. I asked her to please hang up her dress. I was promptly ignored.
Twenty minutes later I walked past the dress on the floor again. I asked her again to please hang up her dress. Once again, I was ignored.
I picked up the dress, walked over to where Aurora was reading on the couch, placed the dress in her hand, and told her to hang up her dress.
Aurora marched upstairs with her dress, reemerging five minutes later, and said, “I hung up my dress.”
That night as I was tucking Aurora into bed I glanced into her closet and saw her dress. It was hanging up, but instead of hanging it like clothes are normally hung, she had tied it to the hanger.
Really?
I had to laugh. Hanging her dress that way had to have taken twice as long as just hanging it the normal way. But her way was probably more fun.
Her goal is to make things interesting. My goal is to get done what needs to happen. Part of this is just that I am an adult, and she is a child. Part of this, though, is that she is a fun person to be around. As long as you aren’t trying to get her to do something she doesn’t want to do, she is bright, energetic, and entertaining.
But sometimes tasks just are not fun. We are locked in this never ending battle between what is engaging and what is efficient.
Sometimes things just have to be done, like emptying a dishwasher or putting away toys. Sometimes things just shouldn’t be done, like putting pudding on the walls. And sometimes things need to be spiced up and made more interesting, like finding a new way to hang a dress.