Little Tom Sawyers

Have you ever been to Disney's Magic Kingdom in Orlando? There is part of the park where you take a ferry boat over to a small island, Tom Sawyer's and Huck Finn's island. It has a fort and obstacles and cool hiding places. Sultan and our friend, Pat, commented on how it would be cool to have something that big and adventuresome for adults, say to rent out for parties. It's just that not a whole lot of adults I know remember how to truly play like a child.

I took my daughters and our neighbor friends to a place behind our nearby park today. There is a river, a field, and a "really cool ditch". I had banned them from this ditch yesterday, when Sophie tried to bullshit me that an adult was going with them when I told her she couldn't go. There is the quintessential tree with the carved swear words. Didn't we all think that was just so cool to see the F-word SPELLED out?! There is a shady bank with tall weeds and grass. The kids swung from branches, climbed the trees, and gathered wood for a fake bonfire. I stood and watched them play make believe for quite awhile. I hated to ruin their fun but it was time to make dinner. They played tirelessly, pretending bears were chasing them, that they were invisible, that they were riding dolphins, and that they were swimming. As an adult that much imagination would have to happen by perhaps OD-ing on Robitussin. Ah to have the imagination and enthusiasm of a child, maybe life wouldn't seem so tedious and boring?

When Andy and I were little my Grandma and Grandpa Seymour used to live in this apartment complex in Grand Rapids. There was a decent-sized swamp behind it and when we were bored, which tended to be often, we explored back there. We would find big sticks and go "fishing" which really was just code for dragging big, soggy leaves out onto the banks. It was harmless, we weren't destroying anything, least of all the environment. Although no one gave a shit back then. People still ate their Big Macs from those throw-away styrofoam containers and didn't think twice about chucking them by the side of the road. There was this mean bitch lady who ALWAYS seemed to be perched and ready to yell at us. "You kids shouldn't be doing that! You need to stop it! Do your parents know where you are?!" Twat bag old hag. She could have used a stick up her ass is what I was thinking. Why do grown-ups have to spoil all the fun?

Sometimes I feel like the Debbie Downer of my mom friends. I always feel like I'm yelling at them to keep it down or knock it off or come inside. I'm not so easy-going and carefree. I don't let them run all over the place, from house to house playing at will with whomever they like. I don't bake cookies all the time in case little friends should need a snack. I bake at Christmas and that's pretty much to give cookies as gifts. I wish I was the mom who though up crafts and made a lemonade stand with my kids or played in the mud and just thought, "Oh well!" when it got all over my kids shoes and clothes. Let's put it this way, I don't think I'd do too well on Survivor. I am enemies to bugs and the cold and deeply intimate with a flushing toilet and my coffee maker. I like my kids clean, quiet, and without a posse of 14 friends all screaming for icee pops in my kitchen. I'm really exaggerating here, there's no way in HELL I would have 14 of either of my kids' friends in my kitchen at once unless there was a natural disaster and the government mandated it. I'm a selfish bitch, I know.

You might see me at the Adventure Spot near the park. I will be sitting on my bike, fake ignoring my children but really keeping a keen eye on them to make sure they don't break any bones or carve any potty mouth words themselves (Ha! I know they know what plenty of swear words are but they know Mommy would kick some ass if that happened...). I will have me cell phone in hand, texting the four people I figured out how to program into my phone. I might have a tear in my eye of nostalgia for my youth. Or maybe it's just the wind, I can't tell. I used to like getting dirty and playing with bugs, didn't I? Either way, I'm Mommy Explorer with my herd of little Tom Sawyers, awaiting their next adventure.