At the 3rd stroke ….

We ate at one of our favourite restaurants on Sunday and unfortunately, the service was, how shall one say, a little “rough around the edges”.

Well, I must have glanced at my watch one too many times because Joseph asked if he could have it.

There aren’t many personal belongings of mine that I am all that precious about where the children are concerned but my watch is one of them and so I told him no, he couldn’t have it. However, I had noticed in his school book that morning that he had coloured in a worksheet on time and, after congratulating him on such impressive “stay-within-the-edges” colouring, said that I would be taking him to the shop to choose a watch.

This bit of news delighted him and asked if he could have “a Power Ranger watch?”

I smiled, explained that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind but yes, if that’s what he wanted.

And, as always, situations experienced by my children remind me of my own childhood and I got to thinking about my very own first watch.

A Timex diving watch; it had a blue rubberised strap with a twisting bezel indicating how much oxygen you had left which, as you can imagine, came in very handy for a boy living in South East London in the 1970’s.

Needless to say, I loved the watch.

So much so in fact, that I rarely took it out of its presentation box and I’m sure you’ll agree, watches are so much more useful when they are removed from the box they came in.

This however, was the pattern for most of my belongings. I bought (or received) something, I loved it, cherished it, took it out of its box/holder/packaging, used it oh-so-briefly before putting it back.

I can hear what you’re thinking.

What the heck is the point?

And you’d be right.

I had so many fantastic things, toys, books, valuable items, that I just didn’t get any pleasure from because I wanted them to remain in the same condition as when I got them.

I can hear what you’re thinking again.

Obsessive compulsive disorder.

And you would (probably) be right again.

Thankfully, I worked through this unhelpful approach to belongings and now treat things as ……. things.

Things to be used, to be worn, to be driven, to be …… well, the list goes on.

I still have to check myself with the children’s personal items too though. It isn’t realistic to expect a (nearly) six year old and a (very nearly) three year old to keep their toys in A1, pristine condition cos’ it ain’t gonna happen.

Part of the fun of a big, colourful plastic car when you are 6, is seeing how fast you can roll it along the hallway and see how hard you can get it to hit the door at the end. It doesn’t matter what Dad says, that is the fun part.

The chips out of the paint on the skirting board is another matter!!

But that’s a post for another time.

“Roll it again Poops – try and get it to do a skid!!”