Who makes up holidays? I’m fine with the religious (Christmas, Yom Kippur, etc.) and the secular/quasi-governmental (Labor Day, Memorial Day, etc.), but whoever earned permission to dub today Hobbit Day and this Wednesday Punctuation Day needs to get a day job.
Of course I’m going to sound like a bit of a hypocrite when I admit today starts my own celebration of National Keep Kids Creative Week.
Author/illustrator Bruce Van Patter, is trying to keep the fourth week of September officially dedicated to removing the imprint of kids’ butts from the couch cushions. He started in the fall of 2003, and now hosts a Website full of ideas to help families who are stumped for ideas of their own.
I can do him one better. If you want your kids to be creative, get your own tuckus off the couch and let your imagination run wild with them. A survey commissioned by HearthSong late this summer found 62 percent of parents admit to playing with their kids less than an hour a day. One in six parents don’t even spend an hour a week engaging in some sort of playtime.We’re a bunch of lazy you-know-whats.
OK, I’m climbing back down off the horse. The air was a little thin up there. Some days, I just don’t want to play with my kid. I can only let a pull-back car loose to fly across the floor so many times before I want to pick up a book. And I have as much fun filling a bucket with sand as I do watching paint dry. Go ahead, play me a sad song on the violin.
Oh, but wait. I gave birth. I’m a mom. So playing with my kid is . . . . (wait for it) . . . my job. So we’ll be celebrating with a rousing game of let the toy car crash into the wall 50 times or so followed by a thrilling trip to the sandbox. Hey, she’s happy.
