I Don't Wanna Grow Up

We've all heard the only difference between men and boys is the size and cost of their toys. Maybe one the best parts of being a dad is the ability to buy toys -- recklessly -- and play with them yourself, all under the guise of spending time with the children.

I love to watch my kids play, because it reminds me of when I was a kid, with nary a care in the world other than who would win the battle for the castle that day, or what new structure would be added to the LEGO city by noon.

I was a LEGO kid. I had a massive collection of bricks and wheels and doors and windows and roof tiles. My cousin was into LEGO Space and LEGO Castle, but I was all about the LEGOLAND town -- the gas station, the police and fire houses. I used my bricks to make everything in the city -- houses, a school, stores, restaurants -- my LEGO city grew daily. I spent hours and hours building and re-building, tweaking and playing with my Matchbox cars in the LEGO city. And to this day, I love to build, and it's now something I like to do with my girls.

Their interest has been increasing lately, and it's amazing to watch them dig through a bucket and piece together a bridge, a gun, a bird. You can see the wheels turning in their minds as they place a piece, remove it, put in on somewhere else, maybe tweak again, and then you see the look -- the one that says "yes, that's the right spot for that brick...now what?!"

There's just something about the fun that comes from the challenge and the problem solving of building. And sometimes I wonder what kind of person I'd be today had I not spent so much time building. Would I be creative? Would I have th confidence to be outspoken? Would I be persistent, curious, open to new ideas? Would I be energzied more by the problem than the answer?

I imagine I'm not the only dad who grew up playing with LEGO. Which is why I'm anxious to hear if there are other dads out there who grew up with it, still play with it, or share it with their kids. Why? What makes it something you just can't forget...or give up? Drop me a mail or leave a comment!

1st Grade Musings

Thursday night was open house at my daughter's school -- one of our favorite things every year. Skylar was so excited for us to go, she couldn't stop skippng and leaping around the house before we left. The school was buzzing with people everywhere, and was bursting with artwork and projects lining the halls.

I love open house every year because you can feel the creativity oozing from the pages hanging on the walls and the clay models resting in display cabinets and you can see that everyone around you is amazed and, yes, inspired. If only we could stay as open, free and optimistic as we were as children as we grow up. I snapped some pics of some of Skye's work, because you can't help but stop in your tracks when you see what's in a first grader's mind...and what I wish was in mine.

Here she says: I am proud of reading, writing, learning, I love school because you learn, you get to ride the bus.


Here, an anagram of her name: Sweet pumpkin pie, Kind to everyone, Yes I am cute, Likes to [play] baseball, Animals are special to me, Relly likes school.


Miss Cally made the family portrait, and fortunately, I did not get an orange, high-top ponytail.


This is my favorite, because where most of us would consider happy to be something fleeting, my first grader sees it all around her. Skylar's "Happy Poem" reads: Happy is smiling, Happy looks like family smiling, Happy sounds like my cat meowing, Happy tastes like ice cream, Happy smells like nuts (!), Happy feels like the sun warming me up, Happy is smiling.

The Case of the Irish Booby Traps

Fiona came home from nursery school last week bursting with excitement over this news: her class was going to capture some leprechauns!

Apparently, while they were in the big room, some leprechauns had danced their way into their classroom and sprinkled some green glitter all over. Upon return to the classroom, the children found the glitter and Mrs. Parks and Mrs. King told them that the leprechauns must have been there.

"So...this is so exciting...we're going to use some straws and make some booby traps!" Fiona told us, overjoyed.

"Booby traps?" I said. "What kind of booby traps?"

"You know! Booby traps, where there's a box and a string and we'll put it up on its side and then pull the string so it falls down on top of them when they dance inside of there."

"But why would they go inside the box?" I pressed.

"I don't know...we'll put some little things inside of there that they like to make them want to go inside of there and then we'll catch them and take their gold!" she replied, with a devilish grin and rubbing her hands together.

"What do you think they will like that you can put in there?" I asked.

"I don't know...how am I supposed to know?"

"I think you should put corned beef and cabbage. And maybe some beer in there."

"Ewww! Gross, Daddy! That won't work."

So, here's how it played out: apparently, they set the booby traps, but no leprechauns appeared and then it was time to go into the other room for songs on the piano, which is when the leprechauns (aka Mrs. T, the lunch lady) must have invaded the classroom. Fiona told us when they got back, the booby traps had been sprung and there were two notes. One said "Well, you made good traps, but we squeezed out," and the other said "If each child finds a clover that we hid in the room, you'll get our pot of gold." So they collected all the clovers, and the teachers handed over the pot of gold chocolate coins.

She was over the moon. Which is why I love children. She was totally immersed and enraptured by the mystery of the sneaky leprechauns.

If you ask me, those leprechauns would have stayed put in the booby traps if they had been baited with corned beef and beer.

"Can Johnny Come Out and (Be Taught to) Play?"

A friend sent me an interesting New York Times story that gives me pause: a new Manhattan playground design with national aspiration that calls for "play workers" to guide a child's curiosity and imagination as they explore the playscape.

One one hand, times have changed. When I was a kid, my bike was my ticket to the most wonderful places in the world. My friends and I went everywhere, and sometimes miles away (did you know that mom?) We found fallen trees whose upturned root balls created natural castles. We climbed trees, strung and swung from ropes, built makeshift bridges over streams, plucked crawfish from the water and put them on trial for invading our land, caught frogs to feed to dragons -- all in the pursuit of defending our kingdom. One of my favorite books was Katherine Paterson's "Bridge to Terabithia" (soon to be a feature film!), and much of my role play stemmed from that book. Exploration and discovery as a result of wandering, combined with my own ideas of adventure and fantasy, provided excellent fuel for my imagination.

Sadly, we no longer live in a world where children can safely go even half a block from our driveways. The thought of my own girls riding their bikes the distances I went as a child is absolutely terrifying. Hell, I've even panicked when I've lost site of them at the playground. So a place full of more than just the standard playground equipment sounds promising. But the needle scratches the record when I think about adult intervention.

Who makes for a qualified "play worker"? Won't this become a whimsical minimum wage summer job for some lackluster teen looking for extra cash? Visit any small town beach these days and you're bound to find a gaggle of "lifeguards" who are more interested in each other's company, well tanned pecs or flirty eyelashes than they are in what's happening on the beach. It's hard enough to even find qualified day care providers.

But that's beside the point. Have parents become so removed that they can't serve this purpose on the playground? I've blogged before about the moms I've seen who use the playground as a babysitter and social gathering spot as their kids run wild, but I've also seen plenty of parents who hop right in and have just as much fun as the kids. But this isn't the point either. Adults aren't supposed to imagine for children -- children are supposed to do it on their own.
I wonder what has happened to make it necessary to always jumpstart a child's imagination. While my wife and I are no strangers to kid videos, SpongeBob episodes on DVR, Web games and the like, moderation is imperative, otherwise we run the risk of raising kids who expect to be entertained instead of responsible for creating their own engagement. I cringe at the thought of my child sitting there waiting for some play worker to help them turn a pond into a lava pit that stands in the way of the beautiful castle.

Most adults left their imaginations behind when they got their driver's license. Most fantasize about new technologies that will make them even more connected and crazy (like the wonderful new iPhone!) or vacations that will help relieve the stress of a daily routine. How often does the average adult daydream about fairy princesses or trolls in the underworld? How willing is the average adult to see something that is not there, to believe something can be what it is not? So why is an adult play helper qualified to properly develop a child's imagination?

Playgrounds are supposed to provide physical recreation. Jungle gyms and monkey bars and swings and slides are all designed to promote physicality.
Thanks to a child's imagination, those staples have become so much more than just jungle gyms and monkey bars and swings and slides. No one told children in 1920 that a jungle gym was, say for example, actually a gigantic turtle's shell that needed to be surmounted to get to the magic river -- that just naturally happened as children connected the things they had heard or read or imagined to the physical structure of the jungle gym. And that's the beauty of the imagination -- like snowflakes -- no two are alike. Every child has the power to see something different, to believe that something is much more than what it seems, but to me, it's a very personal process of idea mapping and attachment with which no one should interfere.

It seems to me that what children need is the proper foundation for imagination: creative materials to use at home on their own accord and with their own rules, opportunities to role play and explore and connect their favorite Junie B. Jones story to their real world discoveries, and parents who foster and encourage creativity with both a short and long leash: sometimes hopping in to join the fun, but often standing back and letting it evolve on its own.

I missed the so-called "De-Lurking Week" but that doesn't mean I don't want to hear from you. So here's a question that may get you typing:

Is it better for a child to have no imagination at all than to be programmed to dream very specific things or play in very specific ways?

*photos from NYTimes.com