My brothers and I spent the bulk of the 70s and 80s playing outside. In another city 10 minutes away, the Mister did, too. Back then, as kids, our options were limited–and blessedly so. There were video games, but Pong’s allure faded fast. Besides, the two players and three siblings debate never ended well. I was able to call rank only so many times. Before cable took hold in the 80s there was OnTV and channels 2, 4, 7, 11, and 13. Unless it was 7:00am, your odds of finding a cartoon were slim. So I rode my rainbow bike with the banana seat, my bum bouncing atop the cartoon sun and clouds with each makeshift jump or potted dirt path in the fields behind the neighborhood. I stopped every dozen yards to hitch up my tube top; it was yellow, to match my dolphin shorts.
And we swam. I swam in the kidney bean pool in our backyard, taking running leaps into the deep end and closing my eyes to JAWS because despite the impossibility, I couldn’t quite shake the fear that a giant great white shark was going to swim around the corner of the bean. The Mister swam with his brother and sister at the community pool, taking breaks to skateboard or ride bikes without protective gear in site.
September brought the end of summer, the beginning of a new school year, and all of us, no matter where we lived, smiled for our school pictures with tousled hair and skin dark as carbon from hours in the sun. It was a great time to be a kid.
Every time a birthday or holiday rolls around, I struggle to tell people what to buy for the boys because like their parents, they spend the bulk of their time outdoors.
It’s harder to do that now. There’s cable, and 24 hour cartoons. Video games as far as the eyes can see, even on phones. Phones! We have phones the size of a deck of cards where we can read books, play games, and twitter. We twitter.
Much of the time the boys are out there by choice. We have basic cable, which means no 24 hour cartoon network. It can be boring inside, especially since we don’t let Mikey play Wii very much. Only here and there as a treat. He was playing it more often over the summer, but we noticed he was getting overly competitive, getting far too upset on the rare occasions when he lost. Crying and throwing a fit when you lose at fake tennis? Lame. Finding both boys in a choke-hold because they are imitating a scene from one of the super hero games? Unacceptable. Wii goes bye-bye.
As much as we like the boys to play outside, I have a confession. I really, really hate the park. I make any kind of excuse to avoid going. I always have an eye for a kid with the plague. I worry about needles and animal poop in the sand box. I bring a book, but can’t get comfortable enough to take my eyes off them for a second, convinced a kidnapper is lurking behind a crepe myrtle. I don’t need to explain the bathroom situation.
So we spend most of our time in the backyard, and the Mister takes them to the park if I have to run errands on the weekend. Right now, Nicholas loves to dig and move dirt around. He can do it for hours, which I don’t understand. Really, he is moving dirt. That’s all. Sometimes he pretends he is a paleontologist, and sometimes he sets up elaborate Star Wars battles, but a lot of the time he just moves dirt from one hole to another or flings handfuls in the air, laughing at the way it arcs and falls.
When Mikey is involved, they are playing sports. Basketball, football, soccer, it really depends on the season. Right now they go back and forth between baseball and tennis, tennis being the favorite. Since Nicholas is still working on his hand-eye coordination, they play feet away from each other, which takes tennis and devolves it into a fast paced and intense game of dodge ball.
They love it. And, like most boys, the best part is when one of them gets clocked in the head.
[Those three pots of dying ferns are our attempt to keep the dogs from digging out that planter. For five years we have planted bushes, plants, and small trees to no avail. The dogs love to dig up the dirt and lay on the cool earth beneath, as you can see from the dirt on the concrete and Buster hovering in the background. I think we are going to build around the planter with stone or brick, but if anyone has any other suggestions, we are all ears.]
Love it! Our kids would rather be outside than anything else. Nothing better than coming in smelling like sunshine, dirt, and a hint of dog.
Speaking of dog, put some cayenne pepper powder in/on the soil. It will stop your digging issues after the first sneeze attack. :)
I always love stories about your boys~ and I love even more that you’re fostering their imaginations by encouraging play outside instead of inside in front of a TV screen. I’m not a mom yet, so I have no idea what it will be like to have and raise children, but I hope I’m able to enhance their creativity by keeping the TV on as a little as possible and the video games in a cabinet for mostly rainy days. (And your pictures capturing their play together are precious.)
I love those faces!!! It reminds me how much I loved playing outside … except at my grandma’s house. She refused to let us in. It could be 200 degrees outside and she wouldn’t budge. It was a sad state of affairs.
And while it does foster imagination, you must watch that it doesn’t run amok. By the time I was 12 I was certain there was a whole underground kidnapping ring focused solely on my friends and I. We ran home sobbing one day because a spy was taking photos of us. One of our mothers went to inquire … apparently the woman was a family member, visiting from out of state, and was simply taking pictures of the mountains. Right. Likely story.
I thought I was the only one with a shark in the swimming pool fear! So ridiculous, especially since I loved swimming in the ocean and you can hardly ever see what’s happening in there. I don’t even know where I came up with such an idea, but I feel that The Little Mermaid has something to do with it.
My daughter loves playing outside as well, mostly at the park since she has no siblings to play with and she can usually find a school friend there. When there’s no one else around is one of the times the mother of a only child starts wishing for a second child to appear out of thin air . Mom is a poor substitute in a game of hide and go seek when part of my body can be seen from behind every piece of playground equipment.
Hah! :)
Hello Jules,
I have a solution for you instead of cayenne pepper, for several reasons:
1. Using something like cayenne pepper can be inhaled and really seriously irritate nasal passages causing a lot of pain.
2. Perhaps you can make another spot like a sandbox in another part of the garden (in the shade?) where they can lie comfortably when it’s hot. That way they’re happy!
3. I’d put down landscape fabric on top of that bed and then cover with riverwashed stone. That will prevent them (or anything else, for that matter) from digging and look really nice and tidy.
4. I woldn’t keep trying to plant there anyway because beds that are so close to the house’s foundation are always really dry and plants never thrive.
5. Nor would I build up that bed, which would mean mounding soil further up along the foundation of the house, possibly compromising the integrity of the concrete — cracks and foundation problems! And you don’t want to go there!
Ailsa
Alisa,
All great things to think about. I can’t move them to another sandbox, because that spot has it all. As the sun sets, it hits that wall so they scamper over there like lizards to enjoy the heat during the winter. When it’s summer, it’s shady during the day and the earth is nice and cool. They ADORE that little area. I guess I will do the river rock like you said, and maybe place some potted (and healthier) plants on top. The ferns were in the side yard for too long and got neglected. I don’t know that they will come back. Curses.
Your story about your childhood just made me so nostalgic for my childhood. I spent all my time doing the exact same things. God I miss those simpler times. These days I feel like I’m suffocating and I would give anything to go back to that time for just a brief period. I’m so glad you are giving your boys the opportunities to have these same memories. Someday they will thank you for this!
I love that your boys spend most of their time outside! I grew up in the Midwest, but even so, my mom wouldn’t have me moping around the house being ‘bored’ – she’d just tell me to ‘Get outside!’ I didn’t have to come in until it got dark. In the summer, too, sometimes, if there was an especially intense game of neighborhood flashlight tag going on, she’d let me stay out even past dark. I definitely cherish those memories of running wild through the neighborhood and the sense of independence and freedom it fostered in me. I hope to be able to give my kids the same thing someday.
“An intense game of neighborhood flashlight tag…” So frickin’ cute.
Oh my!! I forgot about flashlight tag. It was the best…..especially since, as a child, you believed that you were doing something inherently ‘adult-like’ by staying out after dark. *gasp*
It was such a punishment for my brother and I if either one of us was grounded and had to stay inside. The worst. It was almost painful. We lived close to the water when I was young, and had a place on the sound. I would literally stay in the water from the moment my eyes opened, until the second before I believed I would be skinned alive by my grandmother.
Those are the things you remember.
Outside is better! We didn’t have a TV growing up and we were allowed to wander all over the neighborhood in packs. The only rule was that we had to be home by the time the street lights turned on.