I'll be playing catch up today. Anticipating a power outage, I'd set aside some chores that could be done in daylight without electricity. They're still waiting. Oh well, as the saying goes, it'll keep me out of the pool hall.
A couple of days in the chair, artfully draped in warm furry friends, and I've seen more TV ads than anyone should have to watch. Some of them make me nutso. There is a wristband sort of thing for kids to wear that gives "points" or some other reward for exercising a minute or so. How did we come to this? Back in the day, being stuck in the house was a punishment and rainy days were pure hell. Kids couldn't wait to get outside to play, ride bikes, hike the hills (we lived in a rural area), walk to a friend's house, climb trees. At school, when the bell rang for recess, children boiled out of the classrooms in a flood of running and screaming to clamber over the jungle gym, the swings on long chains, the monkey bars, and the teeter-totters, all on asphalt. Individual jump ropes were the training ground for the long ropes, and learning to do Double-Dutch was real success. Bruises and scraped knees were a given. Kids learned to get better at whatever it was. Games of dodge-ball and tag-you're-it were played without adult supervision. There were winners and losers and hurt feelings and grins of triumph. Whiners got laughed at. Kids were great at "no quarter asked, no quarter given." Bullies were shunned by the entire play yard. Kids had fun without an app to tell them to get off their butts. I'm a fine one to talk; it was me in the chair like a couch potato for two days. I'm ready for recess!
It's burning daylight and I've got things to do. It's going to be a fine day.
2 comments:
Growing up in NYC, whenever the sun shone, my mother would say, go outside and play...
What a FANTASTIC paragraph about what it's like - or what is SHOULD be like to be a kid...STILL!! I hate that part of the reason that it isn't like that in neighborhoods anymore is the lack of safety to "roam" the streets with your buddies, but playgrounds and backyards and beaches and parks should still be filled with ever-energetic children. Thank GOD my son and d-i-l are outdoorsy types, because my grandchildren will be too. After our rain stopped, my son took his 15 month old on a bike ride!! Oh, and I LOVED mastering Double Dutch!! Let's go outside and play now!
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