Welcome to KidFloor, Your Enforced Meditation Space
By: Audrey Burges
Tags: Humor, Parenting, Satire, Family

Relax…you’ll be here a while.

Photo by Eileen lamb from Pexels

When the sun has gotten low on the horizon — or you’ve decided to close the blackout curtains at 5 pm — it’s time to find some inner peace on a horizontal surface located in one of our KidFloor Meditation Zones.

We have many locations, but we encourage each of our KidFloor proprietors to put their own unique spin on the space. The age and personality of your KidFloor’s owner may vary according to such factors as “I think I hear thunder,” “that scary dog barked at me yesterday,” or “you were on my brother’s floor last night and it’s MY TURN.”

When you first arrive at KidFloor, you’ll find a number of supplies you can use to enhance the comfort of your meditation space. These supplies may include a crumpled Disney Princess dress you can use to cushion your head, as well as a forgotten and slightly damp towel discarded after bathtime that may keep you warm beneath the fan that must always be on.

We encourage you to be savvy in selecting a floor location. The ideal spot will permit the proprietor to know you are in the space, but will also require the proprietor to actually sit up or move in order to see you. Bonus points if the location allows surreptitious use of your smartphone without the proprietor insisting on another viewing of Baby Shark.

The beauty of KidFloor is its unpredictability. Will you be here for twenty minutes? An hour? Two? No one knows. The arc of time bends and wobbles as you contemplate eternity, berate yourself for allowing consumption of two pudding cups at dinnertime, and wonder which horizontal movement out of the room will avoid the tell-tale creaking of joints that trigger our proprietors to check on you.

The commando crawl is low enough to keep you out of sight, but the dragging sound is a dead giveaway. Infant-style crawling puts too much weight on the squeaky part of the floor right outside the bedroom door. Are they asleep yet? Will they hear?

Better give it another twenty minutes.

KidFloor gives you the time and silence you need to think about life’s big questions while you work on your breathing. Pull air in deeply through your nose (you were hopefully smart enough to find a location sufficiently distant from the Diaper Genie), and exhale slowly through your mouth at a volume just loud enough to provide reassurance of your presence to your proprietor.

Gaze with beatific calmness at the glow-in-the-dark stars pasted on the ceiling and notice that dark patch on the ceiling vent. Is that mold? Is there mold in the HVAC system? What if it’s toxic? Is there a mold-identification guide on the web that you could use to figure out — maybe look for remediation companies and should you maybe paint? How about new paint? You like beach colors…maybe you should start looking for beach colors…the proprietor seems to be out cold, so just take out your phone…

Nope! All of our KidFloor proprietors are expertly trained to redirect your barreling train of thought right back to important questions like “Where does poop come from?” and “Can we go poop right now?” and “Can I watch Baby Shark?” until you reconsider your foolish determination to get things done during important meditation time.

Now settle back down, fluff up that princess dress, and get comfy. Welcome to KidFloor!