10 Ways to Play With Your Kids Today

Photo by Victoria Bayer

Is summer slipping away as fast for you as it is for us?  Here’s a few easy ways to take advantage of the end of July with your kiddos this week…

1. Grab some boats (or make some simple floating ones with bark or paper) and spread out a tarp, shower curtain or plastic tablecloth in the yard.  Drizzle water on it with the hose and sit right smack in the middle of it — getting cool, floating boats, making little island getaways, you name it.
2. Have a photo shoot outside.  Be sure to let the kids take your picture too!
3. Shoot some hoops — even if that means tossing balled up socks into a bowl on the coffee table because it’s 115 degrees outside.
4. Go on a sprinkler walk.  Head to an area of town where people have their sprinklers going and sidewalks that go through them, and try to walk through as many sprinklers to cool down as possible.
5. Make some real fruit slushies.  Toss frozen fruit like strawberries in the blender with some water and sugar to taste.  Blend like crazy and enjoy.  Make it extra fun by playing chef with a big variety of frozen fruit choices.
6. Freeze lots of ice cube trays and muffin tins full of colored water and then put all your multi-colored ice treasures in a big bowl.  Head out to the kiddie pool and grab some buckets of water to melt and color mix like crazy.
7. Take blocks of ice to the top of a grassy hill and go ice blocking.  Here’s more info on this activity that’s on our bucket list this year!
8. Make mud pies.
9. Play balloon volleyball.
10. Go camping.  Can’t do that?  Camp in the back yard.  Can’t do that?  Camp in the living room.

And yes, I know it’s winter for some of you!  I think a lot of these are still options.  If not, please do something fabulous and then come back and tell us about it.  🙂

 

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American Music

Jack, Anna and Victoria dancing in the Wilder Pageant last year

Long time no see!  Sorry for being so quiet.  All is good here.  We’ve been busy with Baby Fiona (now 9 months old!), the Wilder Pageant (the 8th year for the girls!), time at the lake to beat the heat and other fun things.

I stumbled across this poem today and I thought I’d share it.  I wrote it for a friend’s son when he was six and he is now a young man with a child of his own.  Boy does that make me feel old!  😉  I think it’s good advice for all of us, though, and it seemed like a good way to pop back in and get back to yapping with you all…

(by Alicia Bayer)

Anthony, I remember it all:
Dancing barefoot in your living room
To the Violent Femmes and your mother’s laugh…
Making a snow-beast,
Finding the kittens,
You playing with my feet.

I held your hand as we crossed streets
And stepped out of pick-ups.
You laughed when I mimicked Aunt Lillian,
Hugged me every time I left
And remembered me when I returned.

Oh Anthony, I missed a year
And you grew up completely.
You hate the Femmes
And don’t like dancing. You find me odd
And go off to watch cable.

You are six
And as old as your mother,
Both of you
Like playmates out of reach, wild things
That wised up and moved on.

Sweet child, I know that growing
Is the biggest part of living.
But please, for that child in you,
That piece of your mother, that bit of the past,
For the dark and the bright and the never,
What your mother lost and your mother dared,
My sweet thing, sometimes,
Dance.