Imagination

I envy my child. His imagination seems boundless. At Christmas this year he got TONS of toys, ride on toys, toys that make noise, toys that light up, toys...toys...toys, so what did he and I end up playing with this evening? A ball. A Spongebob Squarepants, cheap ass, plastic ball. He was fascinated that I could bounce it repeatedly with one hand and would run at me like a bat out of hell, flapping his arms in a vain attempt to mimic me. When he got bored with that he took the ball and balanced it on the garbage can and watched as it rolled off and onto the recycling bag. He did this over and over. He found it quite amusing and in my mind he was teaching himself a little something about physics...or maybe he just liked the sound of the ball hitting the crinkly, plastic recycling bag...

As soon as he was bored with "garbage ball 2.0; the extended edition" he asked me to dribble the ball for him once more and this time I decided to switch the game up and asked him to "watch me shoot this into your play house". I threw the ball and it collided with the playhouse, bouncing in a myriad of different directions. Gabe laughed, ran after the stray ball and dutifully brought the ball back to me. He backed up behind me and shouted "again". Then for the next 15 minutes he laughed his butt off while I attempted and occasionally succeeded at getting the ball to bounce into the house.

Meanwhile Edie watched on, amused at all the laughter and fun we were having. Gabe even insisted that she try and shoot the ball, she wasn't half bad...with a little help. After the game, I gave the kids a bath and put them to bed and I knew I needed to write this moment down. It just goes to show that if you're willing to play with your kids then you can make almost anything fun...with a little imagination.