Imaginations!

Do you remember as a kid playing and being bored and your Mom telling you to "go use your imagination"?? I have so many fond memories as a child of using my "imagination" with my sisters. Just ask my sisters Jenny and Ashley about all the tents we built in the pine tree fields behind our house, or all the pipe cars we made and pushed each other around in, all the times we played cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers on our bikes, or better yet, next time you see my sister Jenny ask her about the time we turned a table upside down to make a pirate ship and I dropped the table on her big toe! Memories, good memories!

Kids just don't play like this anymore. They watch T.V. all day, play their video games, and "text" or "IM" each other. Where has the magic gone, where did the imaginations go? Don't get me wrong, I definitely let my kids watch some television, sometimes it's a Momma's only saving grace for some peace and quiet! But, I also encourage them to "go use their imaginations" as my Momma once told me and my siblings to do. Emma and Ethan are getting quite good at it actually. Emma loves to dress up as a princess, or as a doctor, she will have Ethan be her patient, or her knight! It's absolutely adorable. But nothing made me more proud the other day when Emma made her own tent! Yes, I said tent, only 3 years old and finally made her own tent to play inside of, she brought all her baby dolls out of her room and was talking to them and playing with them inside her "house". She was so proud of herself and her and Ethan played in that tent for HOURS that afternoon. I had to help Emma a few times get the sheet back up on top of the chairs as her brother was being a tipical boy and kept wrecking apart her house, but overall she did most of this by herself and it just flooded back so many sweet memories of my own childhood where so many hours of the day were lost in playing house, being a princess, or pretending in the world of make believe. I only hope my children can keep on creating those memories together throughout the rest of their childhood! As a Mom I'm certainly going to encourage them to use those little brains of theirs.....so until next time, take a second and remember some of your childhood playdays and dreams!