"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”
-Shel Silverstein
The winter weather has drastically reduced the amount of outdoor time that Ashlyn enjoys. She likes the outdoors, she likes the sandbox, she likes the trampoline and the grass. But when she can’t have these things, she finds her own games to play indoors to fill the void. This week it was substituting the couch for the trampoline, and not just for jumping. Instead of simply jumping, she would fall backwards onto the cushions. Okay, I know this is not good parenting here, and yes I know that we shouldn’t let her play on the couch like that. But she has a lot of fun doing it, and she’s actually very careful as she she looks behind her to line up her fall. When we were kids, we didn’t even have to buckle our seatbelt on road trips; playing on the floor or in the back window was perfectly acceptable. And we came out ok, right? Now that I think about it, maybe we shouldn’t let her play on the couch after all.
Before you judge us completely, here are some pictures of an activity that we’re doing right. We’ve tried to make teeth brushing a fun activity and our efforts have paid off. When it’s time to go to bed, Ashlyn will say “Time to brush teeth and go to bed!”. And off to brush our teeth we go. Next up on our list of teaching activities: filing tax returns. Any ideas on how to make that fun?
We went to Austin this weekend to visit some friends, and Ashlyn decided to help with the packing. Her biggest contribution was to add all the books on the floor to the bag. Apparently she thought there was going to be a lack of books once we left the house.
Upon our return we were greeted to very windy but pleasant weather. The pictures below illustrate what happens to Ashlyn’s hair when you mix wind with it. For a minute there I thought her hair was going to act like a kite and carry Ashlyn away, but she managed to stay firmly planted on the ground. Whew!
