These days, I wonder around, sadly nostalgic about all of the things my children and their children will never experience..........They will never know the wonder and joy of playing in their own dream city, built from the ground up using sticks and rocks and mud, Matchbox cars traversing it's highways and bi-ways. (They have toys!!) (TOYS? You had toys? Well, in my day, we had one orange to share between us............." LOL Sorry, I digress.......
They won't have memories of playing "Witchy, witchy Bluemont" and "The Aldie Damn is breaking". They won't dance on picnic tables to 45's, they won't buy penny candy at the corner store and they won't have those long lazy days of summer that we had that seemed to stretch into eternity and allow that anything was possible.
What they will have is "structured" summer fun, healthy nutritious snacks, and games that are considered safe and politically correct. Don't get me wrong.............Safe and healthy are good....but I have to say there was something very liberating about eating candy by the bag and having Kool-aid and sandwich cookies at VBS each summer. (Today's VBSers are lucky to get goldfish crackers instead of carrots and celery sticks) And there are countless kids today who don't even KNOW what Kool-Aid is. (Listen up, kiddies, and I will tell you about colored sugar water served up in a smiling plastic pitcher)
But, just when I think all is lost, and that kids today miss all of the good stuff, I will overhear a couple of them or observe some time honored kid tradition, and I smile,....I guess I am just a tired old woman wishing for the world to remain the same, and ( at least in the ways of kids everywhere) it does.
The things we all need to learn, we really do learn in grade school, and the things we do in grade school must really be primal, passed on genetically through the generations. What else can explain the irrational need all children have to spit on their hands before climbing on the jungle gym.( Hasn't all of our talk about germs and viruses and personal space and bodily fluids sunk in yet?)
So here are just a few of the lessons I have gleaned from working with children these past few years:
1. anything, ANYTHING can be used as a ball.
2. Most kids, if left to their own devices, REALLY take that "it's not fair" phrase to heart....generally, they self police, and I have witnessed many an act of kindness in the name of fairness.
3. "if a grown-up didn't see it, I didn't do it"
4. the opposite of "hot outside" is "cold outside" and for most kids, there is no in between.
5. underneath the most irritating child is the most enchanting person, just waiting to grow up
6. sharing is a concept easily grasped by school-age children and often outgrown by high school age.
7. "cat" and "kat" have the same meaning, and most children have at least one good "kat" story to tell
8. a child will tell you that Daddy yelled at Mommy with the same equanimity as telling you they got to eat pizza twice over the weekend. (Beware Mom and Dad, kids tell all)
9. Being "out there" with their feelings of anger, frustration and hurt is okay with kids. They watch it unfold, keep their cool, make objective suggestions, and when Joey calms down, all is forgotten and Joey is back in the game.
10. Forgiveness is inborn, it it "taught out" of us apparently, and in grade school, it still thrives
11. A salad is a salad is a salad, and no amount of ranch dressing is going to make it into pizza.
12. A caterpillar is a pet.
13. Wrinkled, crinkled, bent paper is as good as fresh flat paper (and it is only me that is so OCD about using new paper"
14. "Water" is the universal word for "celebrate with abandon" in kidspeak
and finally, at least for now.......
15. There REALLY is a half birthday mark, and being 8 and a half is REALLY a world apart from being 8.
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