I am always impressed by the way that kids can take any situation and turn it into fun time. Their imaginations are limitless. When I have a weekend out of town, I bring a book, some knitting, and my laptop so that I am guaranteed not to go out of my mind with boredom. These two, though, seem to only need each other and whatever supplies they happen to find laying around.
Ok, maybe it also helps to have a pile of Pokemon plush toys and a handful of Ultraman figures handy, but really, those things are just the icing on a very imaginative cake.
After four hours of travel this weekend, we were forced to park ourselves in a hotel loading dock while Clarkesworld Magazine ferried his books from the back of the van to the dealers’ room. Unable to really be of any help, it was up to me and the boys to just sit and wait until the job was done.
Me? I spent much of the time fidgeting, wondering how much longer, and killing time with my camera.
The boys? They had a blast playing in the back of the van. I have no idea what the game was – they just liked that the seats were all out of their way, and there was room to roll around.
Sometimes I can’t believe my luck at how easy these two are.
At one point our hotel room was transformed into two countries: PokeLand and Aidan Nation. Both countries were home to a variety of Pokemon plush toys, and both had a few of their own attractions.
PokeLand had the Statue Shop, and Aidan Nation was home to the Sunshine Hotel. The boys were busy with this for over an hour, and it all started with some sticky notes and a pile of pillows. I never would have found anything worth doing with sticky notes and pillows, left to my own devices (unless you consider taking a nap on the pillows, and leaving a Do Not Disturb sticky note on the door worth doing…)
All good things must come to an end, of course, and what has been friendly play can turn argumentative in an instant. Such is life, particularly life spent in a tiny room on top of one another for two days. I’d promised them I wouldn’t drag them out shopping while we were gone. I’d agreed that this would be a change-of-scenery only trip, and not a see-the-sights or find-a-bargain trip. So we stayed in. And there was some really fabulous behavior through it all. And a little bit of not-so-fabulous behavior, too. But just a little.
And nothing that couldn’t be overcome by Mom getting off of the computer, getting down on the floor, and being playful with an overpriced gift-shop puzzle for a while. And hey, bonus! we’ve all got a much better handle on our US geography, particularly states and capitals – something a certain one of us is supposed to be memorizing for school right now anyway…
Quick! What’s the capital of Massachussetts?
Heee! Siblings are cool. Sometimes.
My favorite story of playing with nothing was Nell’s ninth birthday party. We had the Wii set up for Dance Dance Revolution, and a table in the garage for decorating T-shirts, and pizza and chips and drinks and cake, but what did the kids spend most of their time giggling over? Ice cubes. They took ice cubes out of the drinks cooler, and stood on them barefoot in the driveway. The winner was whoever stayed on their ice cubes the longest. This was not my game and not in the party plan, but it was a big hit! (Then they decided to color each brick in our driveway–individual bricks each had their own chalk color. It was beautiful.)
That is perfect! And (in addition to laziness + lack of creativity) is one of the reasons that I don’t usually bother planning anything when I have a kid party. They always find a way to entertain themselves 🙂
great everyday photos of the kids….but especially loving the one of the puzzle piece. like you said we can, if taking our opportunities, find photo ops in the most ordinary of things. Thanks for sharing your vision of everyday.
regards, isabel
Thanks! I like that picture, too 🙂
i love it when all is happy! mine are like that too…. happy days.
I’m glad I have blogging to remind me of this, on the days when I want to rip my hair out over the way they are treating each other 😉
Growing up in the 50s, we were at home with our imaginations and not inundated with gobs of toys to distract us. I’m happy to see that it looks like your two have mastered the concept too. Happy for you, happy for them. 🙂
They have definitely mastered it! In fact, I was trying to come up with a gift for my son’s 11th birthday this week, and I couldn’t think of any toys he might like – so much of his play involves things he makes himself. It’s a good problem to have, I think.