Play has become for me a bit of a parenting issue at the moment. Since moving to northern Europe and having to first hand experience a real cold winter, as apposed to our mild Australian winters, I have found myself as a parent becoming somewhat uninspired and lazy regarding play and activities. It's too cold to go outside, and it seems that we now live in the land of the never ending rainy day. The two days it snowed we spent most of the time outside, since snow could be considered a novelty for an Australian. Yes it was obvious to the neighbours who the newly arrived foreigners were. We were the only ones up at 10am playing in the fresh snow shouting, 'OMG it's snow! Can you believe it?'
From a purely personal note, the European winter has also had me wondering if I'd been a bear in a former life as all I wanted to do was sleep. And not just in bed. For the first time in my life I was easily falling asleep on the floor in the lounge room, in the car and just recently I fell asleep waiting in the Chiropractors office. WTF? So sleepy and tired has lead to a lot of Disney DVDs while I zonk off to sleep in front of the sofa. It's also lead to laying across the kid's room with one eye open, hopelessly trying to engage with Lego or the train set, with my little one begging me to open my eyes so I can see what she's doing.
Unhappy with my parenting at the moment and really with myself in general I've had to stop and take a look at what is going on. Why am I tired? I really have no reason to be. I am a stay-at-home mum living with my in-laws at the moment and I share the house work with them (both are retired) and I sleep roughly 8 hours a night. Stress there really isn't any and my daughter is at kindergarten for the first time. So basically I got some time on my hands.
So I've got to thinking maybe I'm not genuinely tired, maybe I am bored and uninspired. Maybe it's a terrible case of CBF? As a teacher I used to have many fun ideas for activities but recently my head is like a blank whiteboard. And you know what? I find it a very uncomfortable state to be in. When you're known as an ideas person and you start having no ideas well it just ain't right. Maybe playing Lego and trains for the 5th millionth time because you cant think of what else to do just does that to you? Maybe limited toys are to blame? (we left most in Australia, sad just thinking about them)
I've looked online for inspiration but most of the ideas are based on
arts and crafts. While I am an arty kind of person, I'm afraid my little
one has more of a sporty streak, interested in moving her body around and exploring things through building, throwing, digging and kicking etc. (hence why a cold wet winter has been so hard to fill with activities) She is also very social and does not like playing on her own very often.
Either way I am over it. The daily use of the IPad and Disney DVDs in our household has to stop. I do not want to continue being a blank whiteboard and I do not want my child to be addicted to screen time. I want my child to experience more, to engage with her world, to take every chance and not 'watch' her childhood go by. And as a mother I want to feel inspired, I want to enjoy playing with my child. I want to be more creative in the way I parent, not just for my child's sake but for mine.
How am I going to do that? How am I going to bring about these changes that I desperately want? Well I've decided it's going to be through a little blog called Playing it Old School. A blog dedicated to researching the games we played before the Internet, before PlayStation, DVDs and other electronic devices. A blog dedicated to games and activities that we might call old school. A blog that not only works as a collection or catalogue of screen free games and activities but also a kind of way to take a trip down memory lane, a way to pass on to my child what mummy and daddy did when they were kids. What grandma and grandpa played as kids. A resource for teaching the next generation how to play it old school.
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