No Inhibitions

Imagine if adults acted like kids. No I don’t mean tantrums, or pouting, or backtalk.

When one of mine was young, she would randomly waltz up to someone and say “You’re cute and fat!” then skip away all smiles, while they gawked.

I had to explain that was her way, as unique as the rest of her, of saying, “I like you.”
Didn’t have the same effect when I tried it.

So, I mean—those sort of things. Here’s some others:

• -misuse words and still be thought cute (see above)
• -collect caterpillars in mom’s cup, on a picnic, and feed them grass and cart them around.
• -make a mud home for a bucket of earthworms
• -collect frogs and take them for swimming sessions
• -taste rocks
• -stuff 12 Oreo’s in your mouth at once
• -squish ants with your toes and sniff them
• -climb up the slide part of a slide, not up the ladder
• -take teddy bears to bed
• -have an imaginary friend (ie-talking to oneself)
• -scratch your bottom. In public
• -stare, stare, stare some more
• -walk up to anyone, anywhere and ask if they want to play, or be your friend.
• -wear costumes anywhere you go, parliament, the zoo, the dentist
• -play with wild abandon on the play structure, hang upside down, flail arms, and scream
• -say to someone “I won’t play with you anymore” and just walk off with no after thought
• -take your food under the table to eat, with the tablecloth for walls
• -sing or chant out loud in the store, “Alligator pie, Alligator pie, if I don’t get some, I think I’m gonna DIE!”
• -wear checkered tops with striped bottoms and argyle socks, aka, mismatched clothes
• -turn away from a boring conversation and loudly start a different one to someone else nearby
• -peek at other people under toilet stalls

All this equals=Normal healthy kid behaviour: fascinated by the world around them, exploring, discovering, learning—glad to be alive.

…and yet—if we adults would do these things, we’re called—nuts, loopy, off our rocker, our elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top, we’re one sandwich short of a picnic, knitting with only one needle, A few clowns short of a circus, Nice house but nobody home, Not the sharpest crayon in the box, Dock doesn’t quite reach the water, The wheel’s spinning but the hamster’s dead, and lots more of those according to google 😉

But there are advantages to working from home. . .  insert evil chuckle here. . .

Wild Rumpus Books

The most amazing bookstore found me this weekend.

It reached out its wild and papery arms, sucked me through the child sized door built like a cat flap into the standard doorway and whispered sweet nothings into, not my ears, but my heart.

I’m hopelessly smitten.

Outwardly unassuming except for the aforesaid purple child’s door, my first step indoors said:

“Wow–fantastic–fantabulous– I want to live here- forever and ever- ’til death do us part. Just me and this bookshop.”

I’ll try and share it here, but nothing compares to being enveloped by the atmosphere, the smell of books, paper, inks, the whispers of stories told but unread, waiting with bindings flapping.

Books are everywhere!

Big shelves, small shelves, straight and tilted, ragged and new.

There’s books on the floor, on tables, in baskets.

Every children’s book, hot off the press and long out of print, it’s there somewhere, lovingly presented.

There’re well-worn armchairs, benches, and carpets.

You can sit cross legged on the latter with your favourite book and fly about the room.

Which brings me to look at the ceiling.I discover two levels.

An off white, cracked open span, looking like a hatched egg, and the deeper level is painted to begin as space, merging as the crack narrows, into a river which is complete with a canoe.

.
This leafy roofed garden shed is my style–books sprouting in it, books growing around it and what’s this on the floor?

Some wood planks pulled up and replaced with clear acrylic?

There’s a light on a foot or so down, a bit of straw, a water bowl—

which brings me to the next great kid-friendly feature in the Great Wild Rumpus…

THE WILD BEASTIES!  Let the WILD RUMPUS begin!

Children and animals.

Mostly a mutually awesome combination.

And The Wild Rumpus has created a perfect symbiotic environment for both.

Children and pets. Pets and pets. They all get along in four part harmony.

A bantam hen clucks along softly on feathery feet unchallenged by 3 tailless manx cats wandering at will throughout, over and on top of the books.

Two chubby chinchillas rule in their suite by the garden shed where, underneath the floorboards live 3 rats.

Two ferrets have a large ‘apartment’ with a window view, as do the birds further down the window.

These same birds, 3 cockatiels, like to chime in noisily when there’s a visiting author speaking or it’s morning storytime and the 3 nearby doves sing a-cappella.

Last but not least, there’s a pot-bellied little lizard who has place of honour at the desk.

You can see them all here: http://www.wildrumpusbooks.com/meet-animals

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Not just a store. A Haven.

A place mom’s come with their children, where without preaching they can learn the value of books, of reading, of a place they can feel as safe and comfortable in as at home. Sometimes more-so.

A place anyone can relax in and the outside world seems far away.

Not just a store. An EXPERIENCE. And I met a favourite author there. But that’ll keep for another day.

I want to be a Flea Trainer

No one asks me anymore what I want to be when I grow up. I’m guessing, that being over 39 they: 1- think I’m already there, wherever there is, or most likely: 2- they’ve lost all hope of me ever growing up. Can’t say I blame them & anyway, kids tend to have more fun so why should I grow up?

Still I often think of all those things I want to be when & if I do.

I want to be a photographer, an author, an illustrator, an artist. I want to draw blueprints & do some interior design. I want to have a big studio full of light with space for all of these things & whatever related whim takes my fancy. I want to travel & journal it into a book with photos I take. Oh & it’d be nice if free energy came with all this.

When my children graduated from kindergarten, one of the last projects each of them did was a page with a picture of themselves & a caption of what they wanted to become, & the teacher posted all students work up on the last day.

I remember reading the common ones; I want to be a cowboy, a mailman, a farmer, a teddy bear. Some children were less articulate & said; a grass-cutter-guy, or flower-planter-person, or pen fixer. And some elaborated, saying; a lady who helps other ladies buy nice things, the Cat in the Hat, or a fancy zamboni driver. (Never knew whether that meant he’d dress fancy or do tricks while, well, zambonying.)

But the best one that I ever saw went like this:

“When I grow up I want to be a friend finder.”

Out of the mouths of babes…