Quantity Time in the Swampy Marsh

Everybody talks about having quality time with their kids. When Al Franken talks about his childhood, he says that he didn't have quality time with his dad, he had quantity time. They did everything together. They did nothing together. His point was that he didn't have ski trips or any elaborately planned quality time with his dad. He and his dad did stuff like watching comedians on TV. No big plans. Just time together. Being together. A lot.

I liked that when I heard it. First, you never know when your kid is going to want to actually talk to you. He might not want to talk during quality time. But, eventually, with quantity time, he'll have to talk to you.

I also like the idea that parents don't have to create a festival of stimulation every day. Seems like kids don't get much time seeing dragons in the clouds. I think everybody has to figure out their own answer to realization, I'm bored.

Okay. That's the theory.

In the last few weeks, my husband, kiddo and I have spent 11 glorious, quantity time days which included a 9 hour one way trip to a lovely wedding. When not with relatives, we were together, just the 3 of us, all weekend and then 9 hours home in the car, all day long.

Yes, quantity time.

After that, kiddo had preschool for 4 hours and the remaining 6 days were, you guessed it, quantity time. Just the three of us, with no real plans. 6 days of virtually unstructured time with a preschooler.

This quantity time sounded really great in theory. Time to do whatever we wanted. Time to enjoy ourselves, relax after the trip. Be tourists in our own town.

By day 8.5, I started to smell a swamp or what we would call in Minnesota, a marsh. In the summer, not too deep water that stands around in the sun with stuff growing in it, starts to smell. More fuzzy stuff grows. You can't drink this water. Nothing moves but the birds and the bugs, maybe a fish. If you get near the marsh, grateful, blood-starved mosquitos will feast on your flesh through your clothes. Fresh water might get added, but nothing is taken away. It just sits there, cooking like a stew in the hot summer sun.

I never understood why Minnesotans would call a swamp, a marsh, and think it was cool. They study them, watch the sun rise and set over them. We even have a fancy health club called The Marsh.

I assume the swamp, I mean marsh, becomes an important body of water when the ocean is half way across the country, either direction. For Minnesotans, marsh is the glass half full version of swamp.

We do have Lake Superior which is the largest lake in the world. You can't see across it so it feels like the ocean. However, the rest of the lakes and swamps have that same water standing around problem, if you ask me. Here, also, the mosquito issue.

So, my life is starting to smell like swamp. Things are getting added, but nothing is circulating. We are all just together most of the time. We did some fun things, and I think this sort of schedule is really terrific when you are vacation or staying somewhere different, a new pond. But, when you are going back to the same old marsh, day after day, even though you got a break, you're still going home to the place where this is nothing really circulating, the old swamp.

This is why God invented grandparents or babysitters or cousins. Crucial ecosystem stimulation to make quantity time, better quality.

Stay at home moms need to get out by themselves, even if it's just to go to the gas station. I forgot. I was having a lot of distracting feelings. I just forgot. For a week.

I didn't really just forget. All of the grandparents were out of town. All of the babysitters were out of town. Everyone went to visit someone else, somewhere else. I was grieving. I didn't really want to be in a crowd. I didn't realize it, but all of the conditions were right for seriously stinky swamp water. This was no marsh.

Today, kid and I went to visit the cousins. We had a ball, not doing anything special. Quantity time with some healthy supplements. We laughed, hugged, and kissed. The cousins rode bikes. I showed them my "Around the World" trick with the yo-yo. We told stories from when my brothers and I were growing up. My kid got to play with some different toys. At one point, kiddo dressed up like a priest in a white pillowcase and vestments and offered us all communion. Body of Christ, Mommy?

Amen.