Quality time with the family

I wanted to take my son and my parents to the jungle and the Misahualli river for a swim.

And have some good time together.

My son wanted to keep playing Minecraft.

He did not want to do lame and stupid stuff with me.

So I dragged an almost ten old with me to the jungle, by force of will alone.

And decided to have fun, even if it would kill me.

It did not kill me, or my son, but it did take some patience to stay calm and keep on having fun.

I already knew that my son has an extensive vocabulary, thanks to his father, and he can be extremely rude.

But it did make me wonder if it was too late to have these family moments together, even if I had failed him.

After listening to him for few hours I decided to walk alone for a little while.

I found a huge old stump of what used to be an amazing enormous tree.

How many years it must have taken to grow so big.

How many things it must had seen.

The jungle is never silent but it does quiet your soul.

Is it really necessary to be happy together to have quality time with family?

Do we have to be happy, even by force, or is our family doomed?

Isn't it necessary, for a child, to have time when you're angry with your parent?

And even then, even if you fail their plans and don't comply with their image of happy family and good time with family.

Even then have your parents there with you, showing that they love you, making sure that you understand that you are more important than the quality time.

To feel that it's safe to be angry.

It's safe because your parents love you, even if you fail, even if you aren't perfect, even if you mess up their plans.

I ended up having good time and enjoying my swim to the river.

My parents calmed down and enjoyed their time also.

My son had really bad time and he blamed me for it.

So I told him a piece of wisdom I really hope he will learn and understand one day.

We are responsible of our happiness, not anyone else.

We can decide to be happy and work to be happy, find the force of will and way to make it happen.

Or we can decide to be miserable and make sure everyone else around us notices it.

He did not appreciate my wisdom and told me so in many words.

I kept enjoying the river until I felt ready to return to home.

The way back was interesting, in a very way the old Chinese curse describes:

"May you live in interesting times".

Interesting times as in middle of a war, a world wide hunger or preteen in the family.

There are no quick fixes but I hope I showed my son that I'm strong enough to take all he throws at me and still be around standing for him, when he needs me.

I took the pictures with my iPad, I'm sorry that the quality isn't as great as usually.