He’s following me around, trying to tell me about what he did in Minecraft today, as if I care.
I want to care. Of course I do. Minecraft is important to him. I want to care about the things that are important to him. It’s just that it’s 4:30, and I’m trying to cook dinner, and he’s following me around like a shadow, talking. Incessantly talking. About Minecraft.
The water is boiling over, because I keep tripping over him on my quest to reach it and turn down the heat. The back door is open, because someone ran out and neglected to remember they weren’t born in a stable (though the house resembles one). The twins have noticed that Mama is otherwise engaged—and, unfortunately, not just with dinner. That’s an easy one. I can still hear what they’re doing when I’m focusing on the preparation of dinner. But when there is an endless drone in my ear, reciting every part of his Minecraft adventure today? A few things slip through the cracks. Right now, they’re cutting their shirts into tiny little pieces while I crack the spaghetti in half, drop it in the boiling water, and try not to poke my drone in the eye.
Welcome to Minecraft motherhood.
This boy has always had a lot to say. He started talking when he was two because he didn’t want to waste any time. Back then he talked about simple things—what he was reading in his science books (which was always interesting to me), expounding on metaphors when he felt angry (“These are my missiles!” as he pointed at his arms), and offering unique and creative observations on the world around him (“This tree bark looks like your belly.” Thanks, kid.).
Now he has entered a stage I’ve heard is pretty typical for boys his age: Minecraft. We don’t allow him to play often, of course, just an allotted time—half an hour—every day if he so chooses. He always chooses. He also always chooses to talk about Minecraft for about five times as long as he gets to play it.
I try to listen. I really do. I tell myself that if I don’t listen to these seemingly small things, he will not trust me to listen to the large things. It’s just that I’ve never been interested at all in video games. When my brother would spend hours in front of the Nintendo back when we were kids, I chose to pull out my mother’s volumes of Emily Dickinson poetry and Shakespeare masterpieces (what can I say? I was the very definition of nerd from a very early age).
So, inevitably, when my son talks nonstop about Minecraft for four hours, my eyes glaze over a bit. I’m way, way out of my league, even though I spent years as a reporter and you’d be surprised at the long tangents people would take when a reporter stood in front of them.
Most of the time I have no idea what he’s talking about, so I play along. He’s so excited. I try to follow suit and act excited, too. I fail just about every time.
I want my son to know that he is heard, that I love him, and that he can talk to me about anything. Ideally, I’d like that “anything” to be something more like friends or school concerns or his anxiety or his budding interest in girls (no, not really—not yet). I would rather not listen to twelve thousand words of uninterrupted Minecraft talk. If I’m not careful, I can begin to think that the only thing he cares about is Minecraft. But that’s not true. He cares about other things—his brothers, his health, me (“I’ll get you a Shel Silverstein poetry book for your birthday Mama,” he said the other day—the first break in Minecraft-speak in three hours).
Even if it’s not ideally what I want to hear about, at least he’s talking. And because I want to make sure that line of communication always stays open, I pretend to listen, ask questions every now and then, and smile when I think he’s finished (he never really is—the smile only encourages him to say more).
Meanwhile, the twins have now taken the scissors to their brother’s homework—and quite deftly, I might add.
Ah, well. At least the house isn’t burning down around us…yet.
