Playtime in Julia's Imagination

This morning I watched a very interesting segment on the "Today Show" called "Are Your Kids Playing Enough?" Parents are so focused on giving their kids the latest and greatest electronic toy, educational toy and not really engaging in free play. Like yesterday, Julia and I really didn't play with her toys (except the ride along truck) but explored with her imagination. The sticks were presents, the wind was a dinosaur and something in her mind was an alligator. Not that I'm against all educational toys, it's just that some are so focused on getting their kids ahead of the curve that we lose sight that they just need to be kids.

It was grocery shopping day and off we went to Harris Teeter. This is Julia's favorite grocery store because of two things - food samples and the airplane grocery carts. It is my favorite because of two things - the samples and the cool cart give me one sane shopping experience and they sell San Marzano tomatoes. Kidding...well, not really. Anybody who knows Julia knows that her and I are exactly alike in the personality department (poor thing). Which just means our heads butt constantly. So anything to help distract her from what I am trying to accomplish is worth its weight in gold.

When you turn onto the road where Harris Teeter is located, you immediately see the fountains that are in front of the town center. Even if I had my eyes shut (yes, Steve would be driving) I would know when we reached the road thanks to Julia screaming "The FOUNTAINS! They are going to the SKY!". In the last several trips she has added one more thing - "The fountains are in the bathtub, Mama!" Well, I guess they are in a bathtub.

She is also a big fan of construction sites, trucks, tractors, cranes, buses and airplanes. The Harris Teeter road is under construction; so of course there are lots of dirt piles and tractors on the side of the road. Before I go any farther, let me explain something. In our backyard I've started a compost pile that is home to lots and lots of worms. Thanks to Steve and I reading her Richard Scary books, she has fallen in love with "Lowly Worm". Whenever we are working in the garden and find a worm it's Julia's job to take it to the compost pile. Whenever we take scraps out to the pile she informs us that we are "feeding the lowlys". Whenever I turn the pile she has to be there to see the lowly family. You get the picture.... Well the trip today went past the construction. And just like she does with any construction site with dirt piles she exclaimed "Mama! They are digging for Lowly!"

I'm so glad that Steve and I feed into her imagination and let her be a kid. Would she have such an imagination if we didn't? The world may never know ;)