The Way They Play

For the past few days, I've noticed, more than I usually do, how my children play.

I'm not exactly sure why this stood out to me now--maybe because, when I walked into the living room and saw this...

...I happened to think that it's a little unusual for Tobin to be involved with setting up an imaginary world like this.  Oh, he certainly does his fair share of LEGO-building, but what he really loves to do is be outside, so to take the time to set up train tracks, pirate characters, animals, construction paper, and so forth is not the way I normally see him play.

Maybe Shav did all the work, and Tobin just jumped in and joined him.  ;-)

They seemed to be having a blast playing and creating together, and it made me more conscious of how my children play--because a year or two or three or ten from now, they won't be sitting here playing with this stuff!

I have long thought that one of the advantages of having a large family is that the older siblings get a chance to play with "little kid toys" at more than one stage of life.  Every time we have a new baby, the cycle of toys starts over again, and the infant toys are brought out, followed by the toddler toys, and so forth...and wonderfully, all the kids get to play with whichever ones catch their eye, without someone accusing them of being immature.  Take this train set, for example: most (perhaps all?) of those pieces came from Jeff's mom who gave them to us when Josiah was just a little tyke, and all of the children have played with them as they've come along in the family.  While it's true that Josiah and David don't normally sit down and get out the Thomas the Tank Engine stuff, they sometimes end up getting it out and building a track for their littlest brother to enjoy.  And don't tell me they're not enjoying it in the process.  ;-)  That's the way it goes for all the toys around here!

And so, when I saw Shav and Tobin with all the various toys they pulled together into their world, it put a smile on my face.  I love that they're growing in maturity and responsibility and all that good stuff, but I also love that they enjoy getting down on the floor and creating something like this (and having time to do so, but that's a whole other topic! can I just say thank God for homeschooling and the flexible schedule it provides!).  :)

With these thoughts in mind, I kept my eyes open the past couple of days to observe how my children play, what brings them joy, how they choose to spend their free time.  Here are a few glimpses of what I saw...

"Where's Benjamin?" is a thought that goes through my head multiple times a day; and this morning when I asked that, here was the answer. 

Benjamin was having a great time standing on the stool and playing in the water.

It reminded me SO MUCH of Shav doing that when he was about 26 months old, Benjamin's current age.  :) 

Later on, Shav and Tobin came to me and asked if they could sail their boats in the bathtub. 

In the past week or so, they had, completely on their own, made these boats, using a saw to cut the wood, creating a mast, figuring out how to affix it, even adding sails. 

They want to go sail them on the neighbors' pond, but haven't had a chance to do that yet.

The bathtub was a decent alternative--not quite the high adventure of sailing on a pond, but with the added tumult of washcloths occasionally being dropped on the boats, it was dramatic enough.  :)

I couldn't help but think of one of my favorite books from early childhood, Scuffy the Tugboat (anyone familiar with it?), as I watched my sons sailing their boats in the tub.  :)

I didn't take any pictures of this, but after I had put Benjamin in bed for his nap today, the other five kids played a more energetic game: Active Shooter, which is their version of the age-old good guy v. bad guy battle that all kids seem to play at some point or another!  They also played a version of Capture the Flag--well, it was Capture the Purple Hippo, to be exact--and nerf bullets were flying.  I always enjoy seeing all of my kids (all except the youngest, in this case) participating in a game together; truly, having the time and opportunity for things like this is one of the significant reasons we homeschool.

After supper, I caught David playing the piano.  Out of all the kids, he's definitely the one most likely to sit down and play; and on some days, he spends quite a bit of time tickling the ivories.

Maybe Benjamin will take after him.  :)

Even later, after Benjamin and Moriah were in bed, the four older boys played a couple of games together, the first being some kind of roll-the-dice-and-exchange-money game (fortunately, pennies were the currency being used this evening, so nobody went broke) ;-) and the second being Dutch Blitz.  I was in other parts of the house doing various tasks, but I could hear their laughter ringing out.  Now that's a sound that does a mother's heart good!

From this post, it might seem like all we do around here is play.  ;-)  My kids will assure you that's not the case!  :)  But between all the moments of doing math lessons and putting away their clean laundry and loading and unloading the dishwasher and reading science books and taking down recycling and getting the mail and emptying the trash and doing economics homework and so forth, there are many moments of play.  And tonight, I wanted to capture for the future what that play looks like for my children here in the present. 

These moments--of train tracks on the floor and boats in the bathtub and nerf bullets getting lost under couches and behind bookshelves and LEGO pieces, always LEGO pieces everywhere--may be messy.  But they are sweet and precious and irreplaceable, and my eyes have been opened afresh to the wonder of it all.