Best Memories Need No Octa-Core, 8K UHD, or Gorilla Glass 7

Showing up and being present makes for great bonding with the child.

On the many times that I leave my 2.5-year-old son upstairs with his grandparents and try to work downstairs, I tell myself that I have to do this. I’m going to buy him lots of cool toys and awesome books and take him to amazing getaways when I take a day off. My husband is pretty much the same — he and I have a dream to retire earlier, and we’re also planning on doing some serious savings to give our little guy a decent start in life.

Still, our son doesn’t get it. He just protests upstairs from the bottom of his lungs, asking for mommy or daddy or both of us to come to play with him. And no, he doesn’t want to play with us using the tons of different toys he already has. He wants us to be the toy. His messages eventually became clear to us.

Children only need us to show up.

When we do show up, our fantasy is the limit of what we can do together. He’s the happiest he can be when I goof around and roll on the floor or when I pretend that I’m a weasel or an owl, and he’s a hiding mouse.

When his dad comes upstairs, he starts running around in circles out of sheer joy. One of the coolest “games” they played involved just a yarn ball they used to set up a trap. They knotted the yarn on a chair’s leg, then wrapped it around another chair leg, then around the door handle, then around a drawer handle, and so on, until the whole place turned into a yarn trap.

Yet another game he can’t have enough of is when he hides underneath the blanket and dad drops pillow bombs on him. Or when they turn a chair upside down, and he gets to sit between the chair’s legs while dad drives him around the room in his arms.

My son’s favorite pastimes involve no Octa-core, 8K UHD, or Gorilla Glass 7. In fact, whenever he sees us with our noses in our smartphones, he asks us to shut them off. And if we don’t, he starts breaking things or doing everything he can to get our attention.

He loves taking an old radio and opening it to pieces using a screwdriver. Or sitting on the baby gate that we have installed at the top of the stairs, with dad holding him tight. Or looking through dad’s hefty collection of books. Or just climbing on the wall heater to the window, with dad sitting right behind him.

The best memories involve the cheapest items.

The first time we brought our boy into the kitchen when we were making meatballs, he was ecstatic to get the chance to stuck his hands into the ground meat.

And when we let him put the first meatball into the oven tray, he started screaming that he’s a cook — a “dirty cook,” he said, and indeed he was, filled with minced meat way up to this elbows.

We’ve learned quite early that with him, the best memories involve the cheapest items. That’s why we haven’t bought him too many toys either. It doesn’t help that he gets so many presents from friends and family, but the way our son chooses not to give those gifts attention offers us a valuable lesson:

For our child, the best memories involve no Octa-core, 8K UHD, or Gorilla Glass 7. He just wants us to show up and be present. That’s when we truly bond.

We keep forgetting this, and he keeps reminding us of it.

Say you don’t know how to play? He’ll teach you!

Have no fear and no doubt. Your child only needs you to show up. He’ll teach you how to play if you’re willing to learn. You only need to listen to him.

My husband was a bit terrified of the idea of being alone with our baby during our first months as a family. But the more he paid attention to the child, the easier it all became.

Now, when we’ve confidently stepped into the terrible twos, it’s so refreshing to just be with the child and watch him telling you what you’re going to do.

As long as there’s laughter, you’re doing a great job. Even if you’re just playing with the raisins from your kitchen cupboard or wander through a closet and make yourself hats out of plastic bowls.

I can assure you — from the countless gifts you’re going to offer your child over the years, he’ll remember little to none as he becomes a grown-up. But all that laughter and goofing around will forever remain on his mind and in his heart. It’s because happiness doesn’t come from the things we put on but from the things we try out.

Just try to be there for your child. You’ll soon learn that you’re more than enough.

Before you leave… Take a peek at my other parenting articles:

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to connect, find me here: Adelina Vasile.