A pretty good start

I came downstairs this morning and found the island in the kitchen full of paper and markers and drawings.  As I went through them, I found two that were labeled, “Mayflower.” Each boy had drawn one.

No big deal, right?  Except that I was thrilled.

Most kids do this kind of thing all the time.  They draw pictures of things they saw in the woods.  They build Star Wars fighter jets (or whatever those things are called) with their Legos and act out scenes from a movie.  They use their stuffed animals to rehearse new moves from gymnastics class.   Most kids.  But not mine. Not in the past, anyway.

More and more, though, they take up what we are learning during “school time,” make it their own, and extend it in ways I wouldn’t think of.  This afternoon, they took out their Lincoln Logs and started building a “city” of colonial houses.

Learning how to play, how to be playful, how to engage their imagination as they engage with the world – these are some of the deepest dreams I have for the boys.  Lincoln Logs and Crayola markers may not be all I hope for, but they’re a pretty good start.