Someone asked me when we were back in the UK what our boys do with no special activities to go to out here in Africa. I said, "Um, play?" We are blessed to have a sizeable and relatively secure compound around our house, and the weather being what it is here in Benin, they can play outside more or less 365 days a year! We were also handed-down a whole lot of toys by other missionaries with older kids, and for the kids from the village our home is a bit like Disney World, so there are often other kids here to play with ours. Simon is quite into Lego at the moment, too, but most of the time he is taken up with imaginative play. The Bible being quite an influence on him, there tend to be a lot of soldiers (they have replaced his disciples for now!).
Just a few examples of what our boys get up to. Today I made the boys a little kitchen unit out of some cardboard boxes, with a margarine tub as the sink, and Simon made lunch which he and Benjy sat down to eat together. Apparently it was pasta and cake. He then ordered Benjy to "bed" (in the squashy playpen) for his afternoon nap.
Later I heard Simon telling Benjy a story he'd made up (I was making our real lunch so didn't hear much of what it was about). The story was a very long one, and after a few minutes I heard Simon say, "No, Benjy! Come back, the story isn't finished yet!" to which Benjy replied, "'tory finish!"
There was also a lot of running round the house chasing each other, with Simon shouting, "I'm going to 'pirate' you!" amid shrieks from Benjy. There was also some turning round in circles just to experience the world continuing to turn after they'd fallen over on the floor.
And this afternoon I went out for a walk in the fields with Benjy. He was very enthusiastic about it, and walked well, except when we saw a goat and he needed me to hold his hand. He also kept up a running commentary, reminding me about the place where we saw an elephant 6 months ago (except we hadn't - it was a large cow which we mistook from far away ... why does he have to remember our most embarrassing moments?!) and happily waving to the children we saw working in the fields. (I suppose if we run out of activities to propose to our kids there's always that!)
The boys in their "squashy play pen" playing at being in bed:
Newly-planted fields we saw on our walk:
Just a few examples of what our boys get up to. Today I made the boys a little kitchen unit out of some cardboard boxes, with a margarine tub as the sink, and Simon made lunch which he and Benjy sat down to eat together. Apparently it was pasta and cake. He then ordered Benjy to "bed" (in the squashy playpen) for his afternoon nap.
Later I heard Simon telling Benjy a story he'd made up (I was making our real lunch so didn't hear much of what it was about). The story was a very long one, and after a few minutes I heard Simon say, "No, Benjy! Come back, the story isn't finished yet!" to which Benjy replied, "'tory finish!"
There was also a lot of running round the house chasing each other, with Simon shouting, "I'm going to 'pirate' you!" amid shrieks from Benjy. There was also some turning round in circles just to experience the world continuing to turn after they'd fallen over on the floor.
And this afternoon I went out for a walk in the fields with Benjy. He was very enthusiastic about it, and walked well, except when we saw a goat and he needed me to hold his hand. He also kept up a running commentary, reminding me about the place where we saw an elephant 6 months ago (except we hadn't - it was a large cow which we mistook from far away ... why does he have to remember our most embarrassing moments?!) and happily waving to the children we saw working in the fields. (I suppose if we run out of activities to propose to our kids there's always that!)
The boys in their "squashy play pen" playing at being in bed:
Newly-planted fields we saw on our walk:
1 comment:
Haha, that's cute! Yes, my childhood was filled with lots of story-telling and make-believe too... I often ended up being the "prisoner" or "indian" while my brothers were the "soldiers" and "cowboys"! Be careful of trees that grow close to the house, boys have the strangest way of ending up on the roof (and sometimes tumbling off!). ;)
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