I want to play...

I woke up to a beautiful, crisp, cool morning with the feeling of Fall in the air. It was a welcome refreshment after these last couple of months with record heat. We had plans for my husband and his parents to spend the day working on putting up new fence in our backyard so we arranged to have breakfast together bright and early. The only thing better than the change of weather was the mouthwatering smell of applewood smoked bacon and my Wild Mountain Blueberry coffee. With such a delightful ambience, I even rather enjoyed the simple task of fixing breakfast for everyone and cleaning up.

After breakfast, those of us not appointed to fence duty went out back to play. Play, that is suppose to be fun, right? In all honesty I wasn't looking forward to this part. Yes, I was thankful for the beautiful weather and knew the girls would be excited for an opportunity to play outside but I couldn't help but think of all the things I could accomplish inside if given the time alone to do it. When did this happen to me? When did I become such a "grown up"? As a kid, I remember being filled with anticipation of all the fun a weekend could hold and remember how endless time felt when we were left to just play. I brought out the phone and my kindle (wishful thinking) and sat down taking in the fresh air. I'm not sure why I thought sitting would be possible. Two year olds require chasing and five year olds expect you to assist in playing out the many roles and scenarios their imaginations dream up. Reluctant at first, I put away my things and decided to play.

According to the dictionary to play is to engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose. With the responsibilities of life and all our anxious fretting about, we seem to forget how to do this as we grow up. Thankfully it is an innate quality of a child and it is contagious. My girls were giddy with excitement to be outside. They were running in all directions with seemingly no direction. Squealing, laughing, jumping, climbing, singing and talking all at once. It was absolute chaos and completely wonderful. They had not one concern about what would happen next and played with a complete lack of inhibition or restraint. When it was time we made lunch and all ate outside, played a bit more and then came in for naps.

I can't remember the last time I felt this refreshed and alive. Now that they are resting up for whatever the afternoon holds I consider what might of been... I could have stayed in and accomplished some practical things like tackle the everpresent mountain of laundry, continue my quest to rid my house of dustbunnies, or even rid my fridge of it's unplanned science projects. What I probably would have done, though, is sit down and peruse facebook and realize after way too long that I had already read the same statuses five times because nothing had changed since I last checked. I might then decide to finish the book I started on my kindle and then after so little activity would feel sleepy. Since I would still need to make lunch and get the girls ready for nap I'd probably be a little cranky since I'd just want to sleep myself and on top of that I'd be disappointed I hadn't accomplished anything.

I am so thankful I played! Not only was it the very best way I could have spent my time this morning I am thankful I didn't miss out on those precious moments with my girls. Kaley will be 5 tomorrow and her awareness of reality will eventually drown out the details of her pretend world. The twins will all too soon learn how to say their words correctly and sing the right words and tunes to their songs. Life will get busy and I'll always have practical matters to deal with but I'll never get back the minutes I've been given each day once they've been lived. I don't want to get so busy I forget to play and enjoy these moments of my children's childhood. I don't want to ever look back and wish I had just played.