Just for Fun
5 Ways to Make Fun Happen
Grand-parenting is serious business no doubt. We are shaping behaviors, changing lives and nurturing souls. That is what we do and the consequences are eternal. The truth is, though, that the kids won’t know this until much later in life.
Kids just want to have fun!
What’s wrong with that, if through it all we can accomplish some of the serious things too? Call it “serious fun.” My daughter has inherited a phrase I used to use with her and her brother growing up. “Don’t have too much fun!” I would say it with a smile, coaxing them to do just that. Your favorite teachers in school made learning fun, right? So why not make way for some serious fun? Here are five suggestions…
Go Out to Eat
I know what you’re thinking. Five kids, from 18 months to nine years old and everywhere in-between is a recipe for disaster. Not if the recipe is pancakes! It is rare these days that two generations gather around a table, much less four. I guess we just launched a new Fourth of July family tradition: a pancake breakfast.
To accommodate us they put, count them, one, two, three, four tables together! That’s a lot of family and a lot of fun! Notice how carefully my wife hid behind our daughter? She’s there though. I’m already looking forward to next July. Hey, maybe we start a Christmas pancake tradition.
Turn on the Hose
A hose is the only weapon that can make you laugh, make you wet not wounded and create a battle where there are only winners, no losers. When an 18 month-old picks up the weapon, watch out! Toddlers play dumb, but they’re smarter than you think.
Pop the Corn!
Popcorn is the ultimate finger food! It’s expensive in the movie theatre but much cheaper at home. We use Orville Redenbacher Movie Theatre Butter (microwave) Popcorn. When I was a kid we stocked up on Jiffy Pop, a good choice for older kids. You might even do it the old fashioned way: heat the oil, add the pop corn, cover and let the magic begin. I never mastered this, but if you have you can, end with a drizzle of your own melted butter. Mmmmmmmm!
Freshly popped corn is an accessory to any movie night, game of Uno or… just for fun!
Hit the Mall
Have you noticed that malls are dying? Or is it just in New Hampshire? Gone are the “mall rats” who used to roam after school and into the night. Gone are the Food Courts offering twenty different ways to eat. Gone are the teeming crowds. At least that’s the way it is around here.
The good news is that there is plenty of room for kids who want to run, play and eat pizza and frozen yogurt at two of the remaining haunts.
Don’t forget to hit the playground and the photo-booth and the gum ball machines. The whole experience is yours for $10/child and it’s more fun than Disney Land. We put this in our grandparent toolbox and bring it out on rainy days.
Go to Tendercrop
If you live on the seacoast of New Hampshire, lucky you! In addition to the history and the sea, there is Tendercrop, a local farm stand and so much more. It’s very family-friendly and offers the irresistible combination of good food and great fun.
There is a duck pond with real ducks, a cornfield that is transformed into a massive maze (in season), a jump pad, plenty of farm animals and - our grandkids’ favorite - two tunnel slides made of large plastic culverts, one for little tikes (below) and the death-defying “Tunnel of Doom” for older kids.
We wander the fields after, braving the Corn Maze and selecting Adventure Sticks from the remaining stalks in the late fall. Fresh fruit and vegetables are always in season and we end the visit choosing one each for the ride home. Remember to bring plenty of napkins for juicy peaches and pears.
As kids grow older “fun” changes and takes different forms until it is all but replaced by work. That’s a shame because even adults need to have fun. As a grandparent it is your duty to protect the path to fun while doing all those other things like keeping then safe, feeding them and teaching them.
My six year-old Sophia was recently invited to go to Water Country, a water park in the area with slides and bubble pools and extreme fun. She declined at first saying, “What could be more fun than Grandpa’s house?” We beat some tough competition! Eventually I persuaded her to go with her brother, but I loved her first choice.
There is something about fun that lodges in the memory and takes on a life of its own, becoming a kind of cushion for the bumps and bruises of life. They will likely forget the hard times but always remember those times of “too much fun.”