Dangerous, Daring,or Darling?

My children were allowed to play out front alone today. Usually I'm sitting out chatting with the neighborhood moms, doing yard work, washing the car, cleaning the garage, or sitting in the sun reading while they play with the neighbor kids. We live on a VERY quiet street, in a VERY small town and we know and like all our neighbors on our street. It's a friendly place to live. But I'm always on guard, always watching, always protecting, and always spoiling the fun, wild ideas my kids come up with to play. I hear myself saying "no" too often to their great schemes. They walk away head hanging and I suggest they just ride their bikes nicely up and down the street rather than building that enormous bike jump they dreamed up. I have morphed from that carefree, wild tomboy I was as a kid, into super paranoid mom, and my husband is always trying to get me to lighten up a little.

So I let them out on their own and started cleaning up the kitchen and loading the dishwasher. This being August, and not having AC, all the windows are open so I can hear their peals of laughter and snippets of their conversation. I dry my hands and walk to the window. This is what I see.

Hailey was shouting 'Giddyup Horsey!" and giggling hysterically. Ethan was going full bore and acting more like a wild bull than a horsey. Did I run to the door and shout for them to stop it? Did I remind them that jump ropes are for jumping and not wildly pulling people around on scooters? No, I smiled, and grabbed my camera. I was suddenly transported back to my childhood.

My brother and sister and I grew up in the sticks where we had each other to play with or no one at all. We rambled around our family's acreage for hours on end every summer, coming up with all manner of crazy games. One of which was tying all our bikes together with a jump rope and all heading down our gravel road together. Probably not the best idea we realized to late as we began to pick up speed going down the hill. Being the littlest, I got scared and put on the brakes. You can imagine the rest. That was one of a thousand crazy adventures we had. We built a huge fort out in the woods behind our house one summer, dragging wood and tools and nails we pilfered from the shed/garage to construct our own private place to play. We climbed high up in the walnut tree and nailed all these nails into it's massive branches, pretending we were on the Star Ship Enterprise and each had our stations to man. ( I did break my arm falling out of that same tree but that's a different story) Or we would walk for hours through the orchard, imagining different stories and plowing our own paths, discovering animals and insects along the way. Every day was an unknown adventure. I remember rising early and heading out in the cool of the morning with my siblings to take up where we had left off the day before, playing out our imaginary games.

My childrens world looks so very different. For one, we live in town and have neighbors four feet to each side of us. We have a slice of grass behind our house to call our own and the children do enjoy alone adventures back there but it's just not the same. They don't have the same resources I had to work with. And they are always under the protective supervision of an overanxious mother. I'm not saying that's bad, or even unnecessary in today's world, I'm just saying it's different.

So seeing them today, out there tearing it up in their own VERY mild way, it made me smile. There was a spark of that same kind of play I expirienced as a child and they were loving it! So I'll try to let go a little, to relax, and to give them a hammer and nails to build weird things in the garage when they ask, instead of suggesting they go blow some bubbles. I'll still be smart and safe but really decide if the plan that they are hatching is really dangerous or just a good childhood adventure.