The simplest summer fun

The timeless truth of summer vacation is that sometimes the simplest parts are the best.

Yesterday, the kids and I spent the afternoon playing games in our driveway. First we played Frisbee; then badminton; then ladder ball; and we put all the games away only because it got to be 4:30 and I still needed to go grocery shopping.

It was a fairly notable contrast to other events this summer, days we’ve traveled farther, taken part in somewhat more exotic endeavors, and certainly spent a lot more money. And yet it was just as much fun.

For the most part, this summer has kept us relatively close to home, but we’ve still fit in a decent amount of variety in our activities. We’ve gone miniature golfing. We’ve taken several beach trips. We’ve put in lots of boating hours. We’ve swum in a local pond and in the backyard pools of various friends and relatives. There were birthday parties and graduation parties. We took a canal tour in Lowell. We took part in an all-you-can-eat ice cream tasting in Maine, and watched fireworks over the harbor on the Fourth of July. We attended a few minor league baseball games. We spent a day at the Museum of Science in Boston. We visited art exhibits in Lincoln, Concord and Lexington. And we spent a week exploring Disney World, with its myriad wonders and peculiarities, from Cinderella impersonators to roller coaster rides.

And all of it was a lot of fun. But so was yesterday. We were busy with various things indoors all morning; after lunch I told the kids it was imperative that we find some kind of outdoor activity that we all wanted to do. I suggested swimming at the nearby pond where we have a summer membership, or walking through the woods to the ice cream stand.

They preferred Frisbee. And badminton. And ladder ball. In the driveway.

So that was how we spent the afternoon. Not exotic fun, and not a lot of cultural immersion or exploration of nature involved. Just traditional backyard games, on one of the last days before summer vacation ends and school begins.

Yesterday afternoon probably won’t make it into any “What I did over my summer vacation” essays, other than this one. It was trivial. It was mundane.

But sometimes those are exactly the characteristics of summer fun. Yesterday, anyway. I’ll remember the afternoon of games in the yard, even if the kids might not. But my guess is that they’ll remember it too. Maybe not to brag to their friends about. But maybe when they’re my age and looking for something fun to do with their own children, they’ll remember Frisbee. And badminton. And ladder ball. And simple ways to have fun on an August afternoon.

Four in a (hot) tub

I looked around at the damp, pinkish faces of my three family members. “Well, we’re not exactly hiking on the East Maroon Trail or biking the coast of Maine,” I muttered, “but at least we’re all doing something together.”

My husband and children are well aware that there are a number of activities I’d like all of us to engage in together: hiking, biking, trail walks through the woods. These are all activities we have ready access to, both in the places where we tend to vacation and even right outside our door. But it’s hard to convince the other three, especially all at the same time. Sometimes Holly is interested in a bike ride; sometimes Tim is in the mood to walk through the woods to the ice cream stand. Occasionally Rick even sees the benefits of a walk down the lane together after dinner. But somewhat to my discouragement, we’re not yet a family that does a lot of outdoor recreation as a unit. Saying “not yet” is optimistic, I concede, as if to assume it will happen eventually; but I can’t give up on that hope yet.

At the same time, I’m trying to be more realistic. In fact, two years ago one of my January resolutions was to get my family involved in more outdoor activities together, but this past January it was different: my resolution was to stop stewing about how everyone in my family chooses to spend their time. Whether they’re immersed in watching hockey or sewing doll clothes, I need to stop being so judgmental about their choices, and also so easily let down when other people don’t want to do what I want to do.

Gretchen Rubin writes in her book The Happiness Project about how she came to accept the cardinal rule “Just because other people think it’s fun doesn’t mean you’ll think it’s fun”; that rule helped reassure her that she wasn’t missing out on something vital when she decided she didn’t particularly enjoy something like scrapbooking. I need to keep in mind the converse, though: Just because I think it’s fun doesn’t mean other people will think it’s fun.

Nonetheless, it’s emotionally healthy for families to try to spend time together. Which is why last night after dinner, I took comfort where I could find it: in the fact that we’d all decided to soak in the hot tub together. The kids love the hot tub that we’ve had only since we moved two and a half months ago; they treat it like a swimming pool, a never-ending source of great fun. I haven’t taken to it quite as quickly, but at the same time, I know it’s good for me to put aside other responsibilities once in a while – cleaning the kitchen and finishing an article, in the case of the after-dinner hour last night – and jump in with them. Rick tries to take advantage of it too.

So that’s how we ended up all in the hot tub together last night. Yes, I would have felt prouder of us had we been hiking or biking. Or skating. Or boating. But this is us. We don’t do all those other things, at least not regularly. We hot-tub. It’s not what I expected. But it’s pretty good. And those two simple sentences – “It’s not what I expected. But it’s pretty good.” – are sometimes the best words we can hope to say about family life.

Creative output

I asked Holly what she planned to do after dinner, during the thirty minutes or so before we needed to head upstairs together for reading and bathing.
“I’m going to write a play,” she answered.

“Wonderful idea!” I told her. Holly’s third grade teacher is a playwright and songwriter, and without overtly urging the kids to take up either pursuit, he has probably been responsible for many more creative efforts this year in our household and those of Holly’s classmates than might otherwise take place.

Holly sat down at the desktop computer in the family room while I started collecting dirty laundry. Five minutes later I saw her heading off to another part of the house. “The computer kept freezing,” she announced. “So I’m going to build a blanket fort instead.”

A blanket fort? I wanted to protest. What if Tennessee Williams or Eugene O’Neill or Thornton Wilder – or Shakespeare – had ever-so-nonchalantly decided to go build a blanket fort rather than write a play?

I don’t mean to suggest that my daughter belongs in that pantheon of playwrights, just that I was alarmed at how easily she abandoned her literary pursuits. To my mind, her intent to write a play was obviously much more important than any kind of fort-building, and it was unnerving to see her shrug off the plan so easily.

But at the same time, this is one of the most delightful aspects of children’s creativity: how they haven’t yet distinguished art from craft, creative endeavor from hobby, self-improvement from fun. In my mind, those delineations are always obvious. Going running is important; taking a walk is just for fun. Writing an article matters; writing a Facebook post is a frivolity. Making dinner matters; baking cookies is self-indulgent. And so on. Not that I don’t do the things in the latter category; I do all of those things, walk and write Facebook posts and bake cookies. Just that there’s always the foregone conclusion in my mind as to whether or not any given activity is truly worthwhile or just for fun.

Kids don’t think that way. I remember one summer afternoon when my niece, Phoebe, was about five and I was babysitting for her. She played in the sandbox for about fifteen minutes; then she decided to weed the garden. She knew how to weed a garden; she’d been helping her mother with that job all summer. But what was interesting to me was that from her behavior and her attitude, there was no clear difference between sandbox play and garden maintenance. To me, one was recreation and the other was labor, but to her, both were opportunities to have fun in the dirt.

Still, I didn’t want to give up quite so easily on Holly’s literary ambitions. “You can use my laptop if the desktop isn’t working,” I offered. She considered for a moment, and then I guess the muse called out to her, because she sat down at my laptop and worked for the next half-hour or so on her play. When she read it to me, it sounded like she’d done little more than establish the mood of the opening scene, with three characters having a few lines each of banter. “I’ll work on it more tomorrow,” Holly told me with satisfaction. “Now I’m going to work on my blanket fort.”

My friends who are engineers might say that it’s the blanket fort that’s the really important pursuit here, and the script is a mere amusement. Either way, it’s probably good that she wants to do both. As is true of most kids, her interests are diverse and her judgments about them are minimal. I would be wise to follow her example in both regards.

Walking, but no hiking

We had a wonderful weekend in Portland. Once again, the city seemed to pulse with exuberance: on the biking path that runs alongside the harbor; in the shops and cafes; at the public beach; on the sidewalk where the sightseeing trolley disgorge passengers. The sun shone, the air was cool, the breeze was brisk: everyone seemed chipper and happy.

Also once again, my plans to drag my children out on a hike flopped. Or, if flopped is not exactly the right verb, then fizzled.

I wanted to explore one of the easy, kid-friendly hiking trails whose names had appeared on my computer screen ever since I put the word out on Facebook and Twitter that I was determined to get my two children out for a hike this weekend. Bradbury Mountain, or Wolfe Neck State Park, or even the trails that lead off the beach at Crescent Beach State Park.

But it wasn’t meant to be. We spent Saturday morning at the boatyard exploring my parents’ new boat. After lunch, everyone rested and read. And then, when I was ready to brave some new terrain outside the city, the kids had other ideas. It wasn’t that they wanted to watch TV or play computer games. They just didn’t want to get back into the car to drive to a hiking trail, for which I can hardly blame them. Avoiding the car, which often seems important to my kids when we are away from home, is an impulse with which I can never in good conscience argue.

So I told them we needed to do something involving fresh air and exercise, and they could decide what. Holly wanted to walk to the toy store and shop for stickers; Tim was interested in a vinegar tasting at the gourmet shop down the block. (Really. Tim loves vinegar. A vinegar-tasting event for him is like the Ben & Jerry’s Scooperbowl might be for another 12-year-old boy.) Both sounded like reasonable impulses and would at least get us out doing something, if not something that exactly qualified as exploring nature. So we visited the sticker store and then the kids remembered a playground we’d discovered last spring. Forgetting about the vinegar tasting, we headed out in the direction where we thought we remembered the playground being, and found it about a half-mile later. Delighted with that option, the kids ran up and down the slide, chased each other, pumped high on the swings, and ran around some more. Then we walked back to the condo.

I have to admit that no amount of planning on my part, no amount of researching hiking trails and putting out inquiries as to other families’ favorites, is likely to change my kids’ inclinations right now. They’re just not big on hiking. And at a certain point, I need to recognize that and not make the mistake of harping on it.

On the other hand, it’s reasonable to say that as their mother, I have a certain obligation to do what I can to keep them healthy and fit, and part of that is daily exercise. So in light of this weekend’s change of plans, I’ve decided I can’t push them to do activities they really aren’t interested in, but I can tell them they have to find some form of outdoor activity for 20 or 30 minutes most days. Yesterday, Tim played baseball; when I offered Holly the choice of a bike ride, a walk, or time on the swing set, she opted for the swing set – but it was still a half-hour of good physical activity for her.

Maybe eventually they’ll come around. At ages 8 and 12, they surely can’t have formed all their opinions and preferences quite yet. I hope at some point they do develop an interest in hiking. In the meantime, I need to accept what I cannot currently change, push the regular exercise in whatever form they choose, and possibly find other people to hike with.

And to everyone who wrote to me with their Portland suggestions, I really appreciate the ideas, I’ll keep the list, and eventually, one way or another, I’ll try them all out.