Tag: play

Posted in children, toys

Tired of toys, so they played with rocks

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Ramazan Ilyasov on Unsplash

We had our three granddaughters – ages 5, 3, and one – spend the night with us last Friday. We’ve got enough toys at our house to start a preschool, so I knew they would stay busy.

The most popular toys on our shelves have always been the popular toys. The first bin they open is the pretend food, especially the ice cream cones. In minutes, they are ready to take orders and serve up everything from burgers to eggs to ice cream sundaes. The ring of a small bell is followed by, “Order up!” over and over and over again.

They always pull out the toy power tools, too. They are all about do-it-yourself with a jigsaw, drill, reciprocating saw, and a flashlight. Everything in the house is subject to repair or remodeling.

We’ve got a basket of baby toys for the one-year-old, but everyone else likes to play with these, too. Rattles, plastic stacking donuts, and colorful shaky-things keep all ages busy.

On this occasion, they pulled out the dress-up dolls. I haven’t seen these for a while. Hundreds of clothing combinations magnetically stick to the figures. They also end up all over the floor.

But then the older girls discovered the rocks in the backyard garden. Naturally, they started a rock collection. Most of the 1-1/2 inch white river rocks look the same. But before you know it, their collect filled five small plastic baskets.

Doesn’t everyone collect rocks as a kid? Egg cartons make the perfect display cases. A creek just beyond the backyard was the best place to find rocks when I was growing up. My friends and I were fascinated with the mica and shale we could peel into thin slices. We brought home all shapes and sizes of quartz. Since we learned about the hardness scale in school, we felt quite knowledgable about rocks.

Collecting rocks is more difficult in Florida. The soil is sandy and almost rock-free. So we buy decorative rocks to put in our yards. And for kids to play with.

For some reason, kids love to play with rocks. When we are young we just have to throw them. We toss them up in the air, at each other, or, of course towards a window, until our parents step in to ruin our fun. The grandsons have been taking our landscape rocks and tying them to the end of sticks with some palmetto leaf strips to make hammers and axes. My backyard is littered with the little survivalists’ collection of tools and weapons.

Parents and grandparents spend a lot of money on toys. We could save a few bucks if we watched what the children really play with: a boxes, sticks, and rocks!

Posted in Life

Vivid backyard memories

Posted on by William Douthwaite
My childhood backyard from the bottom of the hill

The moment my daughter and her family moved into their new home, her boys were outside, running around and playing in the yard. They kicked soccer balls around with their cousins and threw balls for the dog to retrieve. The two previous houses they lived in had little yard to play in. This is so good for them!

What a blessing to have a yard to play in. The home I grew up in had the biggest fenced in backyard on the block. The yard included a big hill with flat areas at the top and bottom. We could roll down the hill pretty fast, crashing into the fence at the bottom. We had enough room to play baseball and football even though we had to climb over the fence to retrieve hits and kicks. In the fall, the maple trees left behind plenty of leaves for huge piles to jump in. In the winter, a little snow made our yard the best sledding hill around. By building a small ramp, we could get airtime with a saucer sled. We ate a lot of mulberries from the trees at the bottom of the hill. My friends and I build a great fort at the bottom with some wood my dad got from a salvage yard. The dogs we owned over the years loved to chase balls thrown from the top of the hill all the way down to the far corner until they were exhausted. We set up giant games of croquet that covered our half-acre.

As I write this, I am amazed at how vivid my backyard memories are from fifty-plus years ago!

Posted in dogs, Ministry

“Can we play with your dogs?”

Posted on by William Douthwaite

Two Labrador dogs

We lived on the end of the row while I was doing my vicarage (internship) in Baltimore, so we actually had a yard in-between us and the church. It wasn’t a big yard, but was fenced in so the dogs could be out there.

We also lived right across the street from an elementary school. I was told that over six hundred children lived in the nine-square blocks about the school. I don’t doubt that estimate. There were always kids coming and going, running and laughing.

And knocking at our door. You see, we had the dogs. We brought the yellow Lab, Gabriel, with us. We brought home a chocolate Lab, Rachel, a few months after we arrived in the city. They were great companions at home, on walks and when I went for runs. They were great watchdogs, too. Right after we arrived, a repairman came to the house to fix a lock. Gabriel had him pinned against the wall with a snarl I had never seen before.

And the neighborhood kids loved them. It was not unusual to hear a knock at the door and find 18-20 kids on the front step asking, “Can we play with your dogs?” We would let them out in the side yard and the dogs would chase the herd of kids to one end of the yard, and then the kids would chase the kids to the other end. The smaller children would ride the dogs around the yard like ponies. The kids would throw balls and sticks, and then try to wrestle them away from the dogs.

I’m not sure who loved it more – the kids or the dogs. Finally the kids would tire or have to go home, and the dogs would collapse, exhausted and happy, panting with their tongues rolled out on the floor.

We were there over thirty years ago, yet I can still vividly remember the sound of gunfire from a passing car, the all night conversations and music passing by our window, and those excited little voices asking, “Can we play with your dogs?”