Summertime -Packed vs. Relaxed

Growing up my sisters and I never went to camp, didn't go on "playdates" didn't have planned activities or sports. We of course had a pool that we spent most of our time in and we did have friends over to swim. Summertime was really for relaxing and playing and going on vacation.

Somehow parents today don't seem to really get that idea. Almost every parent I know has there kids in everything to sports, to camp, to horseriding etc. The problem with this is if you want to just have someone over to play, there has to be a scheduled day and time because everyone has "things" that they have to schedule around. No more calling someone on the same day to come over and play. I find this rather sad, and so do my kids. There is a friend that will just call and say, "Hey, can Kaleigh and Cole play?" Which is surprisingly refreshing and we always say yes!

My personal opinion is that parents are afraid of spending time with their kids. They don't know what to do with them! Most kids if left alone and given a few ideas will last hours without complaining. My kids (just like my sisters and I) have great imaginations because the learned from my example, coming up with made up games, like "Police Sketch Artist", Puppet shows, and "Towel fashions". The ones in quotations are the ones Tina and I made up.

The first is where two people sit facing each other, one with a sketch pad. The other describes the "burgler, robber, perp etc." The person drawing asks questions like, "what shape was his face, did he have a narrow or wide nose, what did his hair look like?" And so on. Then when the drawing is done, the person drawing says, "so is THIS what the robber looked like?" Not only is it hilarious to see the end result, but you can really go far with it, scars, moles..in fact I think once Tina said something like, "well, the guy didn't have any cartilage in his nose so it was just hanging there!" What a crack up that was! It also helps children learn to really listen and helps with using descriptive words too!

Towel fashions haven't happened yet because it was something we did to pass the time after coming out of the pool. We would take a few towels and wear them in different ways, then one of us would be the commentator saying, "here is Tina, wearing a lovely skirt and top combo, with a turban as an accessory!"

So, as you can tell, we had fun with what we had access to. It is sad that people have to pay other people to entertain their children. By all means don't let them stay at home where they will just whine about being bored! We have solved that one too! My Mom told us if we ever said those two words, " I'm bored", it was code for "it is time to clean". So we were very careful! My kids are very aware of this code!

As we speak they have their toy Chevron cars that they have been playing with for about 2 hours so far. They build them houses or should I say garages with DVD cases. Then they have families go on vacation they visit different parts of the house and this will go on for another hour probably. Then they will try and think of something else fun to do. If they can't come up with something they will ask for suggestions. I have a few other ideas up my sleeve, because I too used to need things to do, and Tina and I had a great time playing our homemade games! So watch out kids, here comes the "Chicky Game!"
Tina, don't laugh too hard!!!