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And eventually we got a rainbow

The rain put paid to the children’s soccer festival today which necessitated spending time indoors. This could be a good thing or a bad thing. Being inside on a very cold and rainy day when you are an 8 year old boy with energy to burn is a bad thing. Being a ‘somewhat older’ bigger person with some new magazines, a fabulous new book and a blazing fire…well, lets just say being indoors held remarkably relaxing appeal.

Which brings me to a conversation I had the other day with a couple of friends. We were all talking about how busy and stressed we are, going to this, going to that, working, taking kids to this, that and the other thing. After the conversation, it occured to me that we were elevating being stressed to a position of importance in our lives, something to aspire to and have bragging rights about- who’s the most stressed? oh you are, then you must be the coolest person in the gang. You need stress to validate your life, you’re a nobody if you’re not stressed.

Hold on a minute, I thought, being stressed is not a value, it’s not my raison d’etre. In fact it can be bit of a bore and sometimes other people’s stress can be boring to hear about. Imagine 10 -15 years from now, this generation of kids (what are they now  Y? Z? – I can’t remember) organising a retro theme party ‘hey guys, lets have a 2012 party, you know, where everyone comes along really stressed because they have a job to go to and kids to look after and how busy the supermarket is and how no one helps out around the house….’ Sounds a bit grim really.

I wasn’t thinking of this conversation this morning though, when I heard the soccer festival had been cancelled. All I could think was “oh no, I’ll have to think of something to do for a whole day-probably indoors!!!”

But by going with the flow, we ended up having a most relaxing and lovely day. Zara reminded me for the several-ith time that she had pocket money burning a hole in her pocket and wanted to buy the Monopoly Electronic Banking game. I’d been resisiting for a while because I didn’t know whether it would hold any appeal once the novelty of playing with the electronic transaction thingy had worn off – (no funny coloured dollar notes in this game.) But I relented and we went off and did some girls only shopping. Zara was so excited about her new game she could hardly wait till we got home. Meanwhile Kayi stayed home and did man things with his father. Actually when we got home they were playing Pick Up Sticks – I didn’t know that game came with ‘wrestle the loser’ rights – must be a man thing.

And then this afternoon the children spent nearly 3 hours playing the new game – and yes, I played for a bit too. It was interesting to hear such young people negotiating million dollar deals, mortagages, rents, taking helicopter rides to strange destinations and paying taxes (stress? what stress?)- and they loved it. I guess it’s the element of realism that makes it attractive. And lucky me, I managed to read a bit, bake some biscuits, catch up on some blogging and just mooch around.

It was a really relaxing day  and I absolutely loved it. The sun even came out at one point and we had a beautiful rainbow.

The silver lining on a cold day