Good Girl

I have many "soap boxes" that I can get on and will get me going. One of my big soap boxes, especially as a teacher, is the lack of imagination and creativity in kids today. In my early childhood days I lived in the country where kids played outside, rode their bikes and ran through the woods. We had a tree house that the neighborhood kids played in and fell out of on more than one occasion. We played baseball in the backyard, basketball in the front yard,  and neighborhood hide-n-go-seek. Now, don't get me wrong, because I also know that the dynamic of the neighborhood has change quite drastically since that time, but that time wasn't that long ago. Where do kids play today? What do they turn to when their bored?
When asking a kindergarten his/her favorite "game" the popular answer last year was angry birds! Computers, video games and television.... UGGGH. I boycott it as much as possible. Noise pollution, I say. We didn't grow up on t.v. I think that is why to this day my sister won't invest in cable. She doesn't watch television at all. I grew up with one t.v. in my house and it was never on at dinner. I love that. Still to this day my parents have one t.v. in their house, even though they have 3 living areas. They have areas to talk and have conversations. Our house does have the rule of no t.v. on a dinner and we eat dinner at the table every night.
So what do you do if you're not watching television? You're playing of course. You're talking, having conversations, dressing up, making animals sounds, counting, coloring, building sand castles, watering the plants, just to name a quick few from this morning. Kids need to use their brains more.
I'm on a tangent, huh?
This is where this blog was intended to go...
Okay, so we also know that kids learn from observations and then from doing.
Madison did just that last week while at Pappa and Mamma'a house swimming and playing in their back yard. We have a dog and Jason's parents have two at their house so dogs on a leash are a common sight to Madison. The dog leash was out and she took it to Mamma saying, "good girl, good girl." Madison wanted to be the good girl. She took the front of the leash gave the back end to Jason's mom and took off.

We of course think that everything that M does is adorable and this was just added to the list. I had to take photos and e-mail them to the siblings kidding about how Mamma keeps her grandchildren on a leash. They made their way around the yard and when they returned, Madison came up with a better plan:

She would be in charge! Why be the "good girl" when you can be in charge? We watched this unfold, laughing of course and said, "Well at least she has an imagination!"  We had all sat down and moved on to other things when Madison came to Pappa holding the leash, pulling him out of his seat, and telling him to play "good girl, good girl." And what do you think happened?

So funny. So yes, we will keep playing outside and we'll see what she can think of next! :-)