grrlTravels

I make good for once

My parents never really liked to play with us. We spent a lot of time together as a family, but not much of it was spent playing. As a child I used to wonder why my mother refused to play with us most times, and now that I have my own children I know. Playing is pretty dull a lot of the time. I do try to play with my kids, but some days I think a lobotomy is the only answer to 90% of the games my children own. I also have a growing list of things I don't play which includes hide and seek, anything to do with Play Doh, and legos. (I like legos, but they don't like me.)

We do have our favorites here. E. came up with "Flea Market" all on his own, and my passion for other people's junk extends to my son offering me random bits from the playroom. (Mommy, do you want this car for $1 or this thing [random piece of plastic that doesn't seem to go with anything in the house]? It's $400.) Catch is good for wasting an hour or so. Hide the <insert name of closest seasonal object here> whiles away the hours as well. (Right now it is pumpkins; soon to be turkeys.) Many of my favorite games involve a lot of me sitting, and the kids going back and forth, the more back-and-forthing, the better.

The one game my parents would play with us was restaurant. They liked it because all they had to do was sit on the couch and pretend to order food, and on a good day it could waste hours. We would take the order (with some negotiating) and head off into the other room to draw and cut out the food. Much later we would return to present the food with much fanfare. The memories are so good that my children have many sets of plastic dishes and more plastic food than is strictly necessary. Both houses are stocked. I'm getting a bit tired of the plastic chicken legs and the unadorned hamburger patty, which happen to be the favorites of E. and Z. But I never tire of playing restaurant.

So when I was trying to think of something to make for the Half the Sky auction I considered aprons, because they are easy and quick to sew (if you aren't me, that is) and popular right now. I wanted to do some aprons for kids, and eventually I settled on doing a few aprons which are perfect for pretend play. Sadly my aprons weren't ready for the start of the auction, but happily I finished them yesterday and listed them today.

Make your kids play restaurant! Do it!