Grilled cheese and homemade sugar cookies.

The stuff of childhood.

An afternoon skipping rocks down on the river shore. Hunting down the uncatchable frog. Trekking through the woods looking for untouched fairy circles....and stepping on a bees hive cleaverly hidden under a pile of leaves and branches. And running for your life to avoid getting stung too many times. Memorizing gravestone poems at an old cemetery and playing hide and seek amidst the grave stones. (Ok, maybe that was just in my family, but it was fun.) Learning to ride a bike in an open field rather than on pavement. I actually learned to ride a seatless tenspeed with no tires, only rims, in our grass over grown field of a back yard when I was 5 years old. Dissecting a mummified cat found under a tree. Using the whole neighborhood for hiding places on that hot summer day when people are chasing you down with water balloons.

Do kids do these things anymore? Or are their lives just so taken up with My Gym and playdates, soccer and music lessons, tv and playstations that they don't even know what it's like to run free through a neighborhood playing till dusk?

It's sad for me to think that my kids might not get the sort of adventures I had when I was a kid. For now they might have some of that because we live where they can mostly run free, but it won't always be this way. I wonder what adventures they will have. I hope they are good. Even the trouble they get into....I hope it's good trouble.

Isn't it interesting how we can plan and plan for our children to have certain things...but at some point we just have to let go, and hope that the memories that they have as adults are full of fun. We hope that they look back with fond memories, even of the discipline they received for certain wrong-doings, and smile and nod and say it was good. I pray for that.