Momservation: One person’s great idea is another person’s mess to clean up.
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I don’t know where my kids are going to end up for college, but it better have ginormous dorm rooms.
‘Cause where else are they going to fit a zip line?
Let me explain.
My son and daughter, 7th and 8th graders, are constantly coming up with “great ideas.”
“We should get a bunny!”
“We so need a zip line!”
“You know what would be great? Our own Hawaiian shaved ice machine!”
“We totally need a hot tub—the kind with all the fiber optic lights and built in stereo!”
“We should get another dog! So Darby has someone to play with—and a kitty too!”
“Mom! We have to build a trampoline course in the back yard!”
“You know what we need? A 108 inch flat screen TV!”
“Mom! You know what would be epic? One of those soda machine in our kitchen that dispenses like 150 different flavors!”
The kids pepper these great ideas out at me all the time announcing it like they have just discovered the cure for male pattern baldness.
They expect to hear “no” so throwing out their brilliant ideas is more done for sport. Like a cat that brings a mouse into the house, plays with it until it gets bored, then walks away from the mouse leaving it exhausted and traumatized.
Or in my case finally yelling, “Don’t you have some homework to do or a room to clean?”
My fourteen year-old son, Logan, throws out outlandish ideas like he suffers from Tourette’s—he can’t help it as a live in the moment guy with an unquenchable thirst for his next fun adventure. Whitney, my stubborn thirteen year-old with a flair for debate, was born with an inability to take “no” for an answer.
With Logan constantly shot-gunning me with ideas and Whitney never letting it drop, I got tired of hearing myself say no and getting batted around.
So I started saying “yes.”
“Sure! That’s a great idea!” I said to the rabbit.
“Really?” they said wide-eyed at their good fortune the first time I changed my answer.
“You bet! As soon as you turn 18 and have moved out of the house, you can have your very own bunny. You can keep it in your dorm room!”
“Very funny, Mom,” my crestfallen idea hatchers pouted. There was no more playful cajoling or exhausting debating. Point was made.
When Logan threw out the Hawaiian shaved ice machine idea, I didn’t hesitate.
“Great idea! You can have it in your dorm room and sell shaved ice to pay for your iTunes downloads!”
One hundred eight inch flat screen? “You can use the money from your shaved ice sales to buy the flat screen! It’ll look great in your dorm room!”
Hot tub with all the bells and whistles? “If you can fit it in your dorm room, that sounds great!”
Another dog for Darby plus a cat? “Darby will have so much fun visiting them in your dorm room. But don’t get caught—I’m not paying for an apartment if you get kicked out.”
“A soda machine? That’s going to make you really popular in the dorms. Are you going to have space in your dorm room with the hot tub?”
These days the mouse is back in charge of the game. My little kiddie-cats have reigned in the onslaught of great ideas and even check themselves:
“I know…It’ll be great in my dorm room,” they’ll chime before I can throw out the phrase that has become synonymous for “Not on my dime, not on my time.”
Interesting thought though…You think Mark Zuckerberg’s mom told him building a multi-billion dollar social media empire would be a great idea for his dorm room?
#EpicDormRooms