We spent a tranquil afternoon on Saturday at Lake Wilderness Park with extended family in an early celebration for Noah's birthday. It somehow slipped my mind that it was Labor Day weekend and we arrived at the park to find all the picnic tables taken near the playground. My kids love playing there so it has become our picnic place. We found a quiet place near the lake and I worried that the kids would nag like crazy for the playground. But thankfully, they found tossing rocks into the lake and climbing on some old tree stumps absolutely thrilling. This was a comfort to me because one of the primary things I miss about Minnesota is the way my children played outdoors. There were few parks in our part of Minnesota because the whole area was a park. A beautiful wilderness (at times cold or mosquito infected, but still beautiful). During the warmer months Tyler always had a minimum of three frogs with him and the kids spent hours exploring outside. I didn't worry about cars speeding down our street or construction debris spread all about my tiny backyard. I didn't have to drive them anywhere for entertainment. They had acres of land to explore with few restrictions. As much as I longed to move back to the NW, I truly miss the safe, quiet life we lived. In our world of scheduled playdates and designated playgrounds, I am grateful that my children can still completely entertain themselves with nothing but a few rocks and trees.
"The essence of childhood, of course, is play, which my friends and I did endlessly on streets that we reluctantly shared with traffic." ~ Bill Cosby
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