Summer Fun Without Leaving Home

I love our kids and their imaginations. While some people complain about being bored (and they do occasionally as well), it doesn’t take much for us to have fun. Looking back at this weekend made me want to call out some of their creativity, and also write some of the things down so I don’t forget them.

Doggy Day Care

It’s been nearly two years since we had to put Kahlua down, but our kids are still around dogs all the time. It just so happened that this weekend, we ended up watching both Khloe and Oscar. They both are good dogs. Khloe is much more subdued since she’s a bit older, but Oscar is a bit more rambunctious. Regardless of temperament, the kids love them both.

And this time when they came to visit, they came up with a new game — “Doggy Day Care.” I really need to get a recording of Carlyn saying it, because the inflection on things makes a huge different.

I’m not sure if it’s really doggy day care or doggy torture, but both pups take it in stride. The kids will make a fort and try to keep them in there. It could be in one of their rooms, our room, or the living room — apparently it’s a traveling day care. Once they are in there, they pet them, pretend to cut their hair, or try to get them to eat. (Yes, there was dog food we had to pick up all over the house). Of all the things though, the funniest part was where they’d lay on the floor and let Oscar go to town licking them. I’d pass on it personally, but they loved it.

Doggy Day Care also apparently has a set of rules and responsibilities that you everyone needs to adhere to. Crosby was very adamant that I needed to help, and that we each had five tasks. I only remember the first and the last that I needed to do: I had to catch them and play with them.

The Water Slide

Deal websites are a blessing and a curse. There’s no doubt in my mind that you can find great deals on things, but they may occasionally encourage you to buy things you might not otherwise. A giant blowup waterslide probably falls into that second category, but with that point acknowledged, it’s not a purchase I regret at all.

The slide itself is pretty massive. I think it’s about 16 feet long, 7 feet high, and 5 feet wide when it’s inflated. If there’s a downside, I’m above the weight limit, so no adults on the slide. But being the big kid that I am, I found a way to get in on the action — with massive squirt guns of course!

Korey ran out to run some errands so the kids and I went out into the yard on a Sunday afternoon and would stay out there for a couple of hours. They would go flying down the slide and I’d squirt them… and they’d squirt me back. We had a little incident the first time that we used it (“Erik, we’ve got a bleeder”), so I was firm in the one kid on a slide rule.

I’d also lay down in the web swing and pretend to take a nap, only to “wake up” to being squirted in the face — which as you can imagine, they found to be hilarious. Perfectly in line with the whole point of this story about them being able to use their imagination to have fun, Crosby came up with squirt gun tag. As expected, there was a lot of getting wet and many many tag-backs, but it was a bunch of fun irregardless. As I said, I really still am a kid at heart and there was nothing I would have rather have been doing than being out there and listening to them laugh.

The last thing we did out there was bring a bucket into the equation. I had pulled it out earlier to help fill up the squirt guns, but towards the end, the bottom was getting really full so I started pulling out some of the water to distribute it to other areas of the (dry) lawn. Then I thought to myself, why not use that as a water weapon. So Crosby would climb up to the top of the slide and I’d use a 5 gallon bucket full of water to push him down it. Quite fun for both of us, I assure you.

Sting Game

I’ve described the sock game before which is always a sure-fire winner, but occasionally Carlyn (in particular) wants to change things up. This time, we didn’t turn on the bouncy castle, but instead just started running around the house in circles. She grabbed a small stuffed animal monster which became the stinger and with that, the Sting Game was born.

They’d chance me around and whenever they caught up to me, I got stung. I don’t know what it is about inflicting fake pain on someone, but I know all kids love it. Crosby got in on the action too with a stinging pillow — that one can also apparently sting you when you throw it and it hits someone as well.

We took a little break in the middle to dance to the “Party Freeze Dance” — because who doesn’t want to do that? lol

Then the last twist was the addition of an empty mustard container. Rest assured, it was used for arts and crafts and didn’t really have mustard in it. Crosby picks that up and decides that it has “tickle mustard” in it. He squeezes it in my direction, and it magically jumps out and starts tickling me. I mean really, where does he come up with this stuff? Ultimately, I again don’t care because I’ve learned long ago not to take myself too seriously.

I know these things will slowly start coming to an end, but there’s no rush desired from my perspective. There’s no need for time to fly, because I’m loving things just the way they are.