Playing with children
Eric and I decide to play with the kids tonight before putting them to bed. Kids have their cars lined up on the floor of their room. Eric immediately sees something that needs taken apart and disappears to find tools. I sit down and to play.
"What are we playing?" I ask.
"Cars!" was their immediate answer.
"OK, so what do I do?"
"You just play." Michael vigorously moves his car around the floor.
"OK, but WHAT are you playing?"
"CARS!"
"OK, got that, but what should I do with the cars?
"Play with them!"
"OK, but how?"
"You just play with the cars" and my kids start making motor sounds and zooming the cars randomly around the floor.
Eric returns with his tool box and starts taking a chair apart. "Come on dear, we are supposed to be playing with the kids!" I remind him.
He hasn't forgotten, just doing some delay tactics...
I push a car around trying to figure out how to 'play cars.'
I have to make this more interesting so I take my car over and pretend to hijack Amy's car. "Give me some money."
"No!" She makes her car talk back.
I pretend to take her car to jail. Michael, very altruistic, comes over and offers to pay me money to rescue Amy's car. Amy's car is let out of jail. We repeat this a few times. Eric finishes fixing the chair and sits down to play with us. He promises fifteen minutes of play time. I make him guard of the "car jail." He doesn't do a very good job and cars keep escaping (much to kids amusement). Then we pretend the cars are rockets and send them up to the moon. There isn't much gravity on the moon and the cars are able to bounce. Eric tries to explain air and gravity to the kids. Michael wants to take his helicopter to the moon. Eric tells him helicopters won't work on the moon. Michael brings it up anyway and proceeds to fly it around the moon. We have cars on the moon, so why not helicopters... Eric shows a youtube video on his phone of astronauts bouncing on the moon and starts this long technical explanation of how an atmosphere is required for airplanes to fly, etc. Michael and Amy look on with bewilderment and continue to fly their airplanes and bounce their cars on the moon. Eric looks at his watch, a whopping five minutes have passed. We play on the "moon" a little while longer and then transition back earth because the cars are being "naughty" and need to go to jail. They are all intermittently sequestered and then released from "jail" multiple times. Eric keeps eyeballing his watch as slowly the minutes tick by. Then he gets the brilliant idea of making the toy box the jail and putting ALL the cars in jail (aka let's clean up). Kids are doped and soon all the cars are in jail! He looks at his watch: 13 minutes. Two more minutes to go. Some of the cars are let out of the box and we roll them around the floor to finish our promised time. Aha, it is clean up time. With mom and dad helping, cars are cleaned up in record time, PJs are put on, and kids are tucked into bed.
Good night.
"What are we playing?" I ask.
"Cars!" was their immediate answer.
"OK, so what do I do?"
"You just play." Michael vigorously moves his car around the floor.
"OK, but WHAT are you playing?"
"CARS!"
"OK, got that, but what should I do with the cars?
"Play with them!"
"OK, but how?"
"You just play with the cars" and my kids start making motor sounds and zooming the cars randomly around the floor.
Eric returns with his tool box and starts taking a chair apart. "Come on dear, we are supposed to be playing with the kids!" I remind him.
He hasn't forgotten, just doing some delay tactics...
I push a car around trying to figure out how to 'play cars.'
I have to make this more interesting so I take my car over and pretend to hijack Amy's car. "Give me some money."
"No!" She makes her car talk back.
I pretend to take her car to jail. Michael, very altruistic, comes over and offers to pay me money to rescue Amy's car. Amy's car is let out of jail. We repeat this a few times. Eric finishes fixing the chair and sits down to play with us. He promises fifteen minutes of play time. I make him guard of the "car jail." He doesn't do a very good job and cars keep escaping (much to kids amusement). Then we pretend the cars are rockets and send them up to the moon. There isn't much gravity on the moon and the cars are able to bounce. Eric tries to explain air and gravity to the kids. Michael wants to take his helicopter to the moon. Eric tells him helicopters won't work on the moon. Michael brings it up anyway and proceeds to fly it around the moon. We have cars on the moon, so why not helicopters... Eric shows a youtube video on his phone of astronauts bouncing on the moon and starts this long technical explanation of how an atmosphere is required for airplanes to fly, etc. Michael and Amy look on with bewilderment and continue to fly their airplanes and bounce their cars on the moon. Eric looks at his watch, a whopping five minutes have passed. We play on the "moon" a little while longer and then transition back earth because the cars are being "naughty" and need to go to jail. They are all intermittently sequestered and then released from "jail" multiple times. Eric keeps eyeballing his watch as slowly the minutes tick by. Then he gets the brilliant idea of making the toy box the jail and putting ALL the cars in jail (aka let's clean up). Kids are doped and soon all the cars are in jail! He looks at his watch: 13 minutes. Two more minutes to go. Some of the cars are let out of the box and we roll them around the floor to finish our promised time. Aha, it is clean up time. With mom and dad helping, cars are cleaned up in record time, PJs are put on, and kids are tucked into bed.
Good night.
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