Im bored

I am pleased to report that Tara has improved considerably over the last two days, and we are talking as usual again!

So after school, bathed, fed, homework completed, we stood in front of her toys and I asked what Tara would like to play today. She stared at her toy shelf bursting with toys and said, 'Im bored with these toys, I have nothing to play with.'

I had a lot of words of wisdom waiting to tumble out of my mouth when I heard the word 'bored', but stopped myself just in time. I also remembered just in time that our mother-daughter relationship had just overcome a rocky patch and I have to be patient.

My mind wandered back to my childhood, and recalled my one and only doll Gigi, who had been played with so much that she barely had a few strands of hair remaining, and all manner of make up smeared on her face. Our television also had one or two channels mostly featuring boring old documentaries. I still managed to have a great childhood, so what was Tara complaining about? That sanctimonious thought was suddenly pushed aside by several others.

While it is true that I grew up with limited material possessions, it is also true that I grew up in a sunny land, with a large house, acres of land, a tennis court, fruit trees we could climb all day, our own farmland with a menagerie of animals ranging from cows to roosters, and at least a dozen children as companions to play with. That was just the tip of the iceberg, and yet school holidays were spent sitting on walls and annoying my mother with constant refrains of, 'I'm bored Mummy'

Coming back to the present looking up at the toy shelves in our small house with rain pouring outside, I realized that every child has the right to be bored. Whether a child lives in Disneyland, or a small house filled with toys and rain outside, he/she will eventually say the words, 'I'm bored.' It is a birthright.

So I did what my Mum did. I got creative

I shut the toy cupboard, pulled out some old cardboard cartons, set them out on the living room floor and had a whale of a time playing 'Dinosaurs in caves'. Maybe tomorrow I could cover some chairs with old sheets and play 'Lions in caves'.

It's true we do end up like our mums...Thank goodness for that