Playing: Radvent journal Dec. 7

Posted on 07. Dec, 2010 by Princess Lasertron in inspiration, radvent

one of my favorite grown-up toys: my fujimax instax

First, an update from yesterday’s Radvent, “Adventure.” We went to the big library downtown and it was GINORMOUS and MARVELOUS! We each got our own library cards, and Alice even got a new book for free for joining. I wrote about our Radvent Adventure on Alice’s baby blog, Daily Alice.

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What were your favorite games as a child? What did you like to do with your classmates or the neighborhood kids? How did that affect the person you grew to become?

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It’s cool to me how pretty much everything I did in my spare time as kids was some kind of play. Even down to my schoolwork and exercising–coloring, sorting, playing tag. Running underneath a gigantic parachute held aloft by my friends. Using my hands and feet to inch along the gym floor on a square plywood scooter, my tummy squished flat against the wood, trying hard to hold my knees up off the ground. What a workout that was. Actually, only a stuffy old adult brain would regard playtime as a “workout.”

I grew up in a neighborhood with lots of kids of all different ages, and we all played together every day. Our favorite kinds of games involved imagining. We loved playing House, or Office, or Chef, or Magazine Editor. I liked to write plays, be the director and cast everyone and boss them around, and then perform for our parents. We all loved doing face paint and dress-ups. I had a special palette of really thick, nice, saturated face paints and a playroom full of dress-ups and costumes that my mom either made, thrifted, or handed down from her closet. I’d wear tutus on my head, a skirt as a cape, and big rainboots to the library and grocery store and imagine that I was a showgirl or a superhero or a movie star or a tortured starving artist.

Dress-Ups * Crazy Eights * House * Dungeons and Dragons * Building Forts * Candy Land * Blind Man’s Bluff * Super Mario 3 * Lemonade Stand * Pogs * 4-Square

We often scavenged around our little town for bits of wood, brick, and other materials discarded by adults, which we salvaged to build little forts. One time we built a little city in our backyard out of bricks and branches and fantasized about really being in charge of our own little kid town. I also loved baking and decorating cakes and frosting cookies, and my grandma always had a drawer full of little blue Jiffy boxed mix that I could make myself by stirring in one egg or a little cupful of milk.

I thought that having the freedom to play and explore and run around the town on my bike as I pleased was totally normal. I thought having adults in my life who would take the time to make cookies with me, or do a puzzle with me, or watch the play I wrote, or buy one of my drawings for a quarter, was something every child surely grew up with. As I got older and learned more about others’ circumstances, my happy memories grew into grateful memories and I realized how important it was in my development as an adult.

I love playing and I love make-believe, and now it’s my entire life! Party planning, craft projects, journaling, rolling around in my bed with my baby every morning, traveling around town taking pictures with my friends. I’m an adult who is a grown-up kid. I work for myself and I feel like I can do anything. Maybe it’s a little bit because I was raised that way–or the adults in my life gave me permission to just be myself and I was always that way. I don’t know. But I do know that how much I “play” is directly proportional to my happiness. Everyone should play more and invite their friends to join them…which I am doing today at CAMP!

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Buy something interesting and inexpensive from the end-cap in the toy section. Get one for you and one to share.

Glittery Play-Doh! Hot pink playing cards! A tiny fishing game! Gyroscopes! Balsa wood airplanes!

Schedule 30 minutes to play.

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Click on the thumbnail below to download a printable .pdf of today’s radvent journaling prompt! Or check out the graphic on Flickr.

Are you writing your own radvent responses in your journal or blog? Feel free to share the link–they are awesome sources of inspiration for everyone!

xo
meg

Tags: radvent 2010