Since I was a kid...

For Tabby's 4th birthday she chose to each lunch at McDonalds.

The playlands sure have changed since I was a kid. I remember floors of concrete, steel slides and a huge metal hamburger with iron bars you could see, and maybe even fall, through.

And we liked it that way.


I was amazed by the playland we visited last Monday.

It has foam floors, covered plastic slides and a mesh encased play wonderland where if a child fell 3 inches it would be a big deal. They also have a light up wall where you are challenged by an automated voice to "hit" each light before the digital clock runs out.

What? Digital, lights, mesh wonderland? It is crazy how things change.

Anyway, after lunch we went to the park with Tabby's friends where she played in a huge sand-box. Finally something I could relate to.

I was watching 'The View' yesterday and they were talking about the increase in food portions, childhood obesity and the link of both to children's inactivity. With gaming systems, television, and the internet children aren't getting the exercise they so desperately need. Elizabeth Hassleback pointed out that when she was young it didn't matter how much she ate because as soon as it was off her plate she was out the door playing till the sun went down.

Amen sista.

I remember games of freeze tag, outdoor hide-and-go-seek, ghost in the graveyard, kite flying, playing in my huge playhouse, swimming in the pond in my front yard (now looking back that was so gross), racing our home-made boats down the stream in our back yard and riding our bikes around the neighborhood again and again.

What has happened?

I think it is so many things and at the risk of getting on my soap box about the whole ordeal I will be brief.

Most of those activities mentioned above were things I did out of my parents sight. They just knew where I was and who I was with and that was sufficient. My neighbors also looked out for me. Bad people drove scary cars and looked like monsters. They didn't talk to me on the computer or dare come into my neighborhood.

It is sad that even through the precautions taken to make playlands, carseats (which didn't even exist when I was little), and neighborhoods more safe, it seems the world isn't as safe for my kids as it was for me. I don't know, maybe it is and we are just more aware of the risks now.

I get nervous when Tabby walks next door with me watching from my front room window. I hope I won't always be scared when she is out of my sight.

I hope by the time she is old enough to play ghost in the graveyard I will either have relaxed or the world will have changed enough that Tabby and Ike will have as happy and adventurous a childhood as I did.