EP30 – Let’s Have Some Fun!

Hey, welcome to this episode of I don't know Jack about parenting, where today I want to talk about how parenting can be fun, shouldn't always be a struggle, doesn't have to be a struggle. It can be fun and let's talk about it. In this episode.

Hey, welcome back to this episode of I don't know, Jack about parenting and we're going to talk about how parenting can be fun. I just really just want to dive in a because I hadn't experienced this week where my seven year old had a case of a stomach virus. He got it on Sunday, unfortunately for him and for us. Um, he came into our bed very early in the morning about 5:00 AM, and he says, Mommy, Daddy, my stomach doesn't feel good and parents, you can relate to this. But his younger brother had the bug the week before, the weekend before this happened, over the weekend. My wife caught it on Thursday and this was Sunday morning that he came into our bed.

So you can only imagine 

He wasn't there five minutes before he began to throw up right into bed at are very clean sheets that got cleaned the day before on the weekend and proceeded to have this happen 10 times over the next three hours. So you can only imagine how he felt. He pretty much rested that day, had zero appetite. I'll try to get a lot of fluids in him knowing that this bug had already happened to the baby, happened to my wife and happened to him. My wife, the baby, it lasted about 48 hours. My wife, it lasts about 72 hours, so there was no way I was going to have him go to school on Monday.

So Monday rolls around. It's a work day for me. I worked from home and uh, I let him relax, you know, we got them a light breakfast and I said, hey, what do you want? So how do you want your day to go? I said, I need you to rest. I need you to relax your home from school. You probably just still don't have an appetite, don't feel great, but you're capable of doing some things. So let's make a deal. So what do you want to do is like, can I have breakfast in bed? I said, I can make you breakfast in and treat you like the little king that you are and you're going to come and have breakfast in bed. And he got all excited. He goes, can I watch TV? Like, Yep, you can watch tv while you're eating your breakfast in bed.

The reason I did this

He came into our bed. He doesn't have a television in his room. So you know, he got all excited, brought them as light breakfast, brought it into bed. I said, I think I'm going to make a decision because I don't think you are going to do this. I go, I think it's fair to say that you can play some video games today. The reason I did this because I want to keep his mind off of his stomach because it was bothering him and my wife said it was bothering her for a few days. I said, you know, and if he's consumed and playing something and occupied, it will be fine. I said, but then he got all excited, but I need you to make a deal. I know you're capable of getting some work done and you have some homework that needs to be done.

I need you to commit to doing some homework three times today. We're going to do a half hour clips with a lot of fun in between. And he's like, okay. So he got to play his video games. I did some work. I came back up a few hours later. I was like, do you need a light snack? How's your stomach? He had a light snack. I said, let's take one of these half hours now and get some work done. So he's doing some math homework. I'm making it competitive. I'm making some funny sounds. I'm acting like a referee. I'm acting like a fan. I'm jumping around. Well, I'm making my own lunch as I. I think you could add those numbers. I know you could add those numbers and he's cracking up over here. He's like, Dad, I'm trying to concentrate. He gets towards the end of his half hour, he had gotten a lot of worksheets done. He was laughing.

So this is the funny thing

I said, you know, it's Kinda, it's getting close to lunchtime. Daddy's got to go back down to the office and do some work. Let me make you your lunch and when you're ready to eat it, you can eat it. And I just made him a sandwich. So this is the funny thing to me. He goes, no, I can eat now I'm, I'm kinda hungry making the sandwich. I set them up, make them feel like a king again. I let them sit in the recliner in his playroom. I get a little tray so he can eat and I'm like, oh, you going to eat all this food? Is Your Tommy Gun? And getting away. And he starts laughing. He says, he says to me in this moment, and I wasn't doing all this intentionally, I was just having a good time with my son.

He says, staying home and being sick is not supposed to be fun, but you're making it fun. Dad. And I was like, this is kind of fun. I'm enjoying my day home with him. We don't get a lot of, you know, just he and I a time with nothing else going on with without an agenda. Right. He'll get he and I time because he wanted to go somewhere. We'll go to a movie. You wanted to see something. We don't get that. He and I time simply because it was random and today it was random. I'm so sorry. I'm just checking it out, trying to get somewhere and they want to make sure the GPS is fine. So it was kind of special. So the rest of the day you got to play some video games, watch some TV. Essentially I needed him to rest, but most importantly he got to have fun. He gets these packets of homework sent home every month.

Everything was right

There's usually about 25 to 30 sheets of homework for the entire month because we were having fun with it. We're halfway through the month and things have happened. He got through 15 sheets with very little resistance in one day, and here's the other thing, as I looked through it to correct it and make sure that he did it right. Everything was right. Look, being sick isn't fun. Doing homework certainly isn't fun, but it's definitely not fun. If we're predetermined that it's not going to be fun the other day we were able to make it fun and moving forward because of what he said, it wasn't the fun part, really wasn't intentional. It wasn't like, Hey, I'm going to make today fun because it's a miserable day, but moving forward for me, I'm going to make sure that there's more fun in our days because that was an exceptional day for he and I.

So go out, figure out how you're going to make your day fun with your kids and it could be being silly in the car. Um, well I'll, I'll, I'll mention this before I go, just a couple of nights ago, we went to a professional basketball game and we got stuck in Atlanta. Traffic, like you wouldn't believe it for an hour and a half. We sat there and laughed hysterically in the car. So much so that both he and I, stomachs were hurting. I had a friend of mine that also went widows. We had an extra ticket and he says, I had laughed this hard in a long time.

Thank you for bringing me with you and your son. Is it like this all the time? I said, no, that would be unrealistic. He goes, and most people would be really upset about this traffic. It seems to not bother you. I go, I have dedicated one on one time or one on one time with my son and a friend of mine. Why would I be upset about the traffic? When have people I care about the car? He's like, Brian, you are a rare breed. Make Life Fun. If we're in the car, listen to. I listen to a podcast. If, if there's traffic, you know, make the best of it, but have fun with it. We'll see in the next episode of, I don't know, Jack about parenting.