Climbing Up the Mountain

My little grand-daughter has arrived (with her mommy and daddy) and is living in my house.  I can hardly believe it's true.  I feel like they have come here for a holiday and that soon they will leave again.  And they will leave, but only to move into their own little place just down the road from me.  So a new rhythm of life begins.  Just how it all plays out remains to be seen and I am sure it will become clear as time goes on.

When I came home from work today, she was all ready to play.  She told me she wanted to show me something.  We went upstairs to her room and I saw that she had lined up a whole row of gems on the narrow wooden rail on the end of the bed.  Then she took them all off and placed them on the floor to make a puzzle....a flower puzzle.


She told me, "I'm very careful, Nanny."  Yes, she is.

Along with the gems she added in to her puzzle the tiny bean bags her mommy made for her.


I'm just so impressed with her imagination and creativity.  

After playing for a while we decided to go outside for some fresh air.  I took her to the little school play ground behind our home.  She found sticks and stones which we saved in my pocket, of course. We tried five of the six swings, we climbed on the climber and  then we went mountain climbing.  That was her idea.  An adventure she called it.  We went up and down twice, with her chattering all the way.




I know that she is very agile and physically capable for her age but I have to admit I watched her carefully, particularly on the way back down the quite steep mountain.  Walking with her made me think of the tension between allowing a child to experience risk and our responsibility to keep them safe.  

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No, our children don’t need more school. They need more play. If we care about our children and future generations, we must reverse the horrid trend that has been occurring over the past half century. We must give childhood back to children. Children must be allowed to follow their inborn drives to play and explore, so that they can grow into intellectually, socially, emotionally and physically strong and resilient adults. 

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Read the rest of this interesting article,
 "Give Childhood Back to the Children" HERE







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