Let Them Be Little: CELEBRATE This Week {104}
I’m glad you are here to celebrate! Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.
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My kids had fall break this week, and they lived it up at my parents’ house. I love this. They get to stomp around in the same woods I stomped around in. They slip and get wet shoes in the same creek I slipped and got wet shoes in. They lose the day to the woods, just like my brother and I did.
They built a teepee. I never built a teepee. They imagined a forest full of panthers and they tamed them with tuna and sardines (of course). Those panthers weren’t there when I was a little girl.
They were happy, and closer too. This is the magic of the woods. It’s been doing it for centuries. Somehow, spending time among the trees, with sunbeams dancing and imaginations running, hearts incline toward one another and love expands.
It’s not just the woods, though. It’s adults allowing play to happen. There’s no pressure at Mimi and Papa’s house. Who you are is absolute perfection. When you are free to be yourself, then you’re more open to magic.
My kids were touched by magic and love in the woods, and I was reminded that my childhood was full of these things. Magic and love. Magic and love that come from being sure of yourself.
Now I get to be the one who wields the wand. It begins with removing the pressure to be someone and allowing who you are to be absolute perfection.
Today’s a great day to love being you.
I’m happy you are celebrating today! Share your link below.
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Twitter: @ruth_ayres
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There is little nicer than playing in the woods. Our little cabin held that special time for our kids, and I love that yours get to spend the time in the place you did, too, Ruth. Wonderful. Have you seen about what are called “forest kindergartens”, started in Switzerland I think, and there are a couple in our Denver area. Here's a link: http://slate.me/1LTEcKO. I imagine you know Richard Louv's Last Child In The Woods, important words! Thanks for sharing this celebration.
Ruth, I am MeMe to my grandchildren and I wrote my celebration from the MeMe's perspective. The magic of childhood is a gift.
Thanks for a post to make me smile.
I love this story. Those magic moments of play are some of my most cherished childhood memories. This reminder about removing the pressure and letting who you are be perfection is so important. Thank you for that.
My celebration also talks about the magic of the woods this week. I absolutely agree with your thoughts about the freedom of nature and time.
Such magic in this post. Reminds me of so many of childhood days filled with imagination. Mine was in a mulberry tree – but just as magical! 🙂
Love your magical words “Somehow, spending time among the trees, with sunbeams dancing and imaginations running, hearts incline toward one another and love expands.” I also love the teepee and the panthers tamed by tuna and sardines! And I love the pic of your children allowing who they are to be absolute perfection.
What a wonderful imagination they have! Thanks for sharing. What a great place to lose yourself! I went to the forest in Switzerland once when I was a kid and I remember pretending to live in the ruins of a castle there. It was so magical to pretend that I was living in medieval times. I would love to play in the woods again like that.