Day 300.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009.

We went to the Garfield Park Conservatory today with good friends Christy, Caroline and Case. We spent a lot of time indoors enjoying the humid plant weather, but did venture outside for about 40 minutes of running around.

I am grateful for unstructured outdoor play.

It was amazing - the scenery was bleak - a huge circle path with brown grass, a patch of just planted trees, and that's about it. But the kids made their own fun. They just spontaneously started this whole elaborate story line - something about teachers and school and trees. They were running around together hand in hand all over the big grassy field and having a blast. It was cold, and I had under-dressed them (no sun as promised on weather.com), but they didn't even notice cause they were having so much fun. Christy and I were the ones who made everyone go in - we were freezing cause we weren't imagining (and running).

For this exactly, I want a big backyard. I want space for my kids to run around free and make up stories and feel uninhibited. I don't want to be the director of playtime all the time - I want them to be inspired by nature. I guess this happened today even without us having a big backyard - we just have to make more opportunities for going to these kind of places - where they can be free and RUN. There aren't a lot of places set up for kids in the city that are this open and free.