Play Again

Friend, Traci sent a link to a film preview posted on Youtube.  It referenced a site and I'm posting the link here.  It's something I needed to see as a parent.  http://www.groundproductions.com/playagain/index.php

My fondest childhood memories are of playing outside on the farm.  Later when we moved into town our back yard still opened up on to fields.  Near us was a still undeveloped woods.  I spent hours upon hours out doors, building forts, tossing cow pies, playing slip and slide in the mud.  Outdoors was a refuge, a place to go when the pressures of being at home were too great.  It was a place to meet friends and sometimes enemies as we pursued a childlike "cowboy justice."  It was a huge backdrop to our games of pretend, imagining ourselves as rulers of field and forest.  My children have a very different relationship with the outdoors.  They rarely get dirty.  My son is afraid of bugs, although fascinated by them.  They haven't really learned how to play outside.

Guess, who needs to show them how, the old mud Queen, herself.  Watch out summer hear we come. I'm taking Just 10 outdoors.  We'll spend time with each other in nature and we'll take time to play.  I'll plan to make one Sunday a month, Adventure Sunday.  Having fun doesn't have to cost a dime.  It doesn't require a controller, a computer, a TVor musical accompaniment.  It does require opportunity, willingness and a creative state of mind.  After all, we are guests on Mother Earth.  It's time to take advantage of her hospitality. Now if I can only convince her to stop raining.