Image from Ndbele Cultural Village
Kathrynzj says at RevGals:
While traveling with my 4 year old we were both pleased to find a HUGE indoor playground. Now he can maneuver himself around those things no problem but I have found myself at the top level of what amounts to a glorified hamster tube more than once either rescuing an article of clothing or The Boy himself. There was a small part of me saddened to find that I no longer had the convenient excuse to be a kid and go up in the playground, but mostly my aging knees and back were quite happy to skip the experience.
Maybe you are better at it than me, but my first-born, responsible demeanor rarely lets up enough for me to do frivolous silly things – like playing on playgrounds – without a good reason. My friend will stand up in a crowded restaurant and serenade me with an operatic rendition of Happy Birthday. My sister is very good at grabbing the joy in the moment. I seem to need a child to bring it out in me and even then… it takes a lot.
Today’s Friday Five celebrates the spontaneous child in all of us… ar at least the one that we admire in someone else:
Let me start by saying that I was probably KZJ's age when I last went up in one of those big playground tubes and learned that my knees...my knees could not do it! (They didn't HAVE those when I was a kid...so maybe they never could...)
1) On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being I can’t do this now I am about to jump into a pit of plastic balls at the mini-mall and 1 being I can’t do this now until I can get all of the fonts on my blog to match – where are you? Ummmmm....probably a 4, because I'll do almost anything but I just don't want to jump into that pit. Ick.
2) What is the silliest/most childlike thing you have done as an adult? Oh, there are many. Holding hands with my spouse and skipping through airports? Hugging trees (I did this yesterday afternoon in my front yard)?...
One of my favorites was as a teenager, when some friends and I decorated the fault line that went through a local neighborhood, making about a 4" crack in the street. Once we put up handmade signs that said, "Whose fault is this!?". Once we plastered it all over with those huge bandaids you use for your knees. *Snort*
3) Any regrets? Not that I can think of.
4) What is the silliest thing you have ever seen another adult do on purpose? Wow. I must be tired, I can't think of anything. Maybe I'll come back to this.
5) What is something you wish you did when you had the chance? I wish I had gone traveling in the van with my highschool boyfriend the summer after we graduated. He asked me to go and I just couldn't...it would have disappointed my parents terribly. If I had, I imagine my life might have turned out differently...but who knows. And I didn't do it, so I'll never know.
BONUS: For our ‘I told you so’ sides – what thing did you skip doing and you’re really glad you did! I'm happy that I have never jumped out of an airplane. Not that anyone has invited me. But that'd be it.
