{"id":375,"date":"2010-08-08T16:51:36","date_gmt":"2010-08-08T20:51:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.annakatedonovan.com\/?p=375"},"modified":"2010-08-08T16:51:36","modified_gmt":"2010-08-08T20:51:36","slug":"listen-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/?p=375","title":{"rendered":"listen up…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night, I did something out of the ordinary.\u00a0 I colored.\u00a0 With crayons.\u00a0 I colored an entire jumbo coloring page featuring Tiana<\/a> from The Princess and the Frog<\/a>.\u00a0 I spent over an hour on my “project”.\u00a0 I had bought a pack of giant coloring pages for Hattie and Laura while I was out yesterday, much to their delight.\u00a0 They spent most of the afternoon sprawled on the floor coloring like it was their job.\u00a0 They could not be bothered.\u00a0 Laura got frustrated because she had to take a potty break.\u00a0 She said “but Momma, I have to finish Prince Naveen<\/a>!”\u00a0 It was very important.\u00a0 So, I decided to see what all the fuss was about.\u00a0 It was wonderful.\u00a0 I was completely absorbed in my picture.\u00a0 I can see now why the girls couldn’t “hear” us calling them for dinner!\u00a0 Once my picture was done and displayed with the ones the girls had finished, I began to think about all the events of the past week.<\/p>\n

Abigail is at camp.\u00a0 She is having a ball but she is away from us for 10 whole days!\u00a0 After dropping her off, my parents, Hattie, Laura and I went to visit relatives in North Carolina.\u00a0 My father has 8 brothers and sisters.\u00a0 My mother has 2 brothers.\u00a0 We have LOTS of relatives.\u00a0 It was a short trip and we weren’t able to see everyone but it was a great few days nonetheless.<\/p>\n

The biggest observation of the week was that Hattie and Laura play together beautifully.\u00a0 On a couple of occasions, we spent the morning at the hotel until lunch.\u00a0 We were in a regular hotel.\u00a0 There was no suite, no game room and the weather was not conducive to swimming.\u00a0 I was worried that the girls would get bored.\u00a0 My Aunt Margaret had given the girls some new little stuffed animals so one morning I suggested that they play zoo until it was time to go.\u00a0 I thought this would last 15 or 20 minutes.\u00a0 Wrong!\u00a0 Hattie and Laura set up the animals under the dresser and zipped off into their fantasy zoo.\u00a0 Hattie got out her notepad and made pages of charts with all the information any zookeeper might need.\u00a0 The animals were bathed, fed and put down for their naps.\u00a0 She pretended to call and order animal food, vet services and zookeeper uniforms.\u00a0 My parents and I were entranced.\u00a0 It lasted over 2 hours.\u00a0 I wish I had a tape recording of the conversation!\u00a0 I was telling Robert about all of this over the phone that night.\u00a0 He didn’t believe me until we got home and Hattie showed him her notebook.\u00a0 They continued to come up with game after game in one situation after another.\u00a0 They needed no toys, no entertainment.\u00a0 Just the freedom to be themselves.\u00a0 It was incredible!<\/p>\n

Last night as the girls were stretched out on the floor coloring and playing with their Barbies, we listened a little more closely to what all they were saying.\u00a0 It turns out that the imaginative play wasn’t new or unusual.\u00a0 It happens at our house on a daily basis.\u00a0 We had just never heard it before.\u00a0 When the girls are in the playroom, we are seldom listening unless they need our help.\u00a0 It is an oasis and a playground and they are free to spend their time in there playing with whatever they choose.\u00a0 How wonderful it would be to be able to transport yourself into an imaginary world where all things are possible.\u00a0 I remember those days from my own childhood and I’m delighted that my girls are able to do this.<\/p>\n

Laura and Hattie are in the playroom right now with one of our neighbors.\u00a0 I think I’ll go listen in!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, I did something out of the ordinary.\u00a0 I colored.\u00a0 With crayons.\u00a0 I colored an entire jumbo coloring page…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[206,17,203,5,205,209,207,208,204],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-children","category-parenting","tag-coloring","tag-hattie","tag-imagination","tag-laura","tag-north-carolina","tag-prince-naveen","tag-the-princess-and-the-frog","tag-tiana","tag-zoo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":379,"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions\/379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}