Sick Chess and Uno
During the two weeks I was sick after a long trip with my 7 year old daughter E and 5 year old son C, I still didn’t get much of a break from Dad Duties. My kids weren’t sick and they wanted to do things, so I needed to rally every day to piece it together with my wife. One of the days on the weekend was particularly hard because I would be stuck at home with C and our 1 year old son L.
E had to go to a birthday party and although I’m usually the one to take her to them, I asked my wife to do it this time. That’s how you know I’m falling apart. I stayed home with C and L. Thank goodness L was taking a nap, so I knew I had a break from chaos.
C wanted to watch TV and my wife agreed, so he was downstairs preoccupied. I told him I was going to lay upstairs for a bit and then come down to hang out with him while he was watching TV. To my surprise, C came upstairs to look for me after about 30 minutes. He said he was bored with watching TV and wanted to play chess. I said sure and he got the chess board to set up. We played a bunch of mini games to get him more comfortable with how the pieces move and what strategies to pay attention to. We also played a real game, which took a bit longer and we weren’t able to finish because L woke up.
After dealing with L and making it to the early evening when everyone was home, C found me again and wanted to play Uno. I originally told him I felt too sick to play, but then I changed my mind and said why not. I will tough it out and just try to make the most of my time with him. We ended up playing a few rounds of Uno and even E joined in. E won once and I won the rest of the times. C really wanted to win, but was just happy we were playing.
I know I’ll look back and wish I had more time with them when they were little. It’s a grind while being a parent to young kids, but the small moments are what we will want back. At least now I can point to one of those small moments where I made something out of nothing by toughing it out. Hopefully there is less toughing it out in the future and more enjoyable moments!
