Family Play!

As a mom, I’ve loved reconnecting with the fun of childhood play!  When we go to a playground, I can often be found running around, climbing, swinging, and otherwise playing with Sienna and Mateo.  They come up with imaginative games, where we’re chasing each other – for some reason or another.  Last summer we were often the characters from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  This year I expect there will be superhero roles for each of us.

I think most adults will agree that one of the things that happens as you mature (and accumulate more responsibilities) is you end up making less time for pure fun.  We’re always thinking about what we need to do, making lists, or attending to tasks and responsibilities.  Since it doesn’t have a sense of urgency and no one is relying on you to accomplish it, playing and having fun tend to drop to the bottom of the to do list.

This past week, my best friend and college roommate Michelle was visiting.  She’s the epitome of fun for me!  We giggle a ton when we’re together.  With the spirit of playful fun already heightened by her presence, the five of us headed off to play on Saturday.  San Diego has a cool, relatively new, park at the Harbor, that Sienna has been begging to return to after a visit with her friend’s family.

This park is really amazing!  There’s a huge water feature for kids to splash around in, lots of unique play equipment – including a large hill that has built in slides. The area around the slides is all that rubbery fall surface.  Running down the hill made you feel like you were going to fall – but in that energizing, silly way. Racing back up was a fun challenge and an interesting sensation.

Dennis, the kids, and I rode a big seesaw together – boys on one side, girls on the other.  Wow, it was fun!  I haven’t laughed that hard or felt that exhilarated in a long time.  It was that scary, silly energy of being on ride.  Teo’s slightly terrified expressions at hearing my screams and hysterical laughter was pretty priceless.  Just pure playful fun.

What kind of purely fun things do you like to do?