Benjamin at the helm of the toboggan ride on our backyard slope
Benjamin with his summer sledding buds Molly Merrick, Maddie and Egan Tetlow, and Pudge Gbur.



on many a day, the sombar yard is "kid-central" for the children living in our cul-de-sac. most times, i find this a great source of comfort- the fact that my neighbors still feel safe having their most precious offspring in the realm of a mother who hasn't got all her marbles. ha!

anyway, if you take a few moments and watch these little souls at work you will be amazed at how simple yet divine their play is- and how much we adults have to learn from them.

my friend vicki triplett and I met in first grade and spent many years wiling away the hours trying to build forts and treehouses, trying to invade the already contructed treehouses of her brothers, singing along to Beatles and Doobie Brothers' albums in the basement of her four-square home, or climbing the mulberry tree, devouring the juicy morsels of city-grown fruit as quickly as we could pick them. the rooms and patches of grass that we played in were not perfectly laid out or maintained (she was one of six children), nor were our activities scheduled or micro-managed by our mothers. We just lived from sun-up to sun-down, simply enjoying our days. I long for moments, strung together like beads on a string, where I didn't care about weeds on my landscape and crumbs on my floor. While I know that, as a grown-up, there are responsibilities I have to keep some semblance of order, I also know that my life, especially, has felt the incredible burden of perfection, and most recently has succumbed to the ramifications of that way of viewing the world.

My mom and I are planning a rousing game of scrabble tonight. You may wonder how this could possibly tie into a post about having fun- the last time we played, in February, we both laughed so hard we peed our pants and had to change our clothes before we finished the round. Now that is what I call a good time.