Randomly surfing the net, Dave bumped accross an interesting article entitled "33 things kids should do before they're 10". As he glanced over the list, he wondered how many his niece Emma would have done, how many his niece Anya will do and how many he himself had gotten round to...
1. Roll on your side down a grassy bank
2. Make a mud pie
3. Make your own modelling dough mixture
4. Collect frogspawn
5. Make perfume from flower petals
6. Grow cress on a windowsill
7. Make a papier mâché mask
8. Build a sandcastle
9. Climb a tree
10. Make a den in the garden
11. Make a painting using your hands and feet
12. Organise your own teddy bears' picnic
13. Have your face painted
14. Play with a friend in the sand
15. Make some bread
16. Make snow angels
17. Create a clay sculpture
18. Take part in a scavenger hunt
19. Camp out in the garden
20. Bake a cake
21. Feed a farm animal
22. Pick some strawberries
23. Play pooh sticks
24. Recognise five different bird species
25. Find some worms
26. Ride a bike through a muddy puddle
27. Make and fly a kite
28. Plant a tree
29. Build a nest out of grass and twigs
30. Find ten different leaves in the park
31. Grow vegetables
32. Make breakfast in bed for your parents
33. Make a mini assault course in your garden/the park
He was imediately struck by a question. What on earth did "23. Play pooh sticks" mean?
Some research later, well after all he was doing a PhD, he discovered "pooh sticks" was a game invented by Whinnie the Pooh, where people drop sticks in the water under a bridge and see whose stick comes out the other side of the bridge first.
Thinking back to his own childhood, he remembered something that surely every child should experience that had been neglected in this list.
He remembered very fondly sitting with his mother as she read to him and his brother. Something so simple, yet unforgettable and unmissable. He therefore amended his list.
34. Learn to read with your parents.
3 comments:
36. Go around with your coat fastened around your neck, but your arms not in the sleeves so it becomes a superman/ batman cape (This is an automatic reflex response which boys have when there are more than two of them together and someone is trying to keep them quiet)
37. Run across a dance floor and half way across skid the rest of the way on your knees (this is best done during a wedding, especially during the bride and grooms first dance. If you manage to knock them over whilst skidding you get 10 points)
38. During a family party/ get together spend all your time running about with your arms spread out like aeroplane wings whilst going 'neyaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhm'* *which is the correct spelling for the noise an aeroplane makes (this is how best to occupy young children during funerals)
39. Soon after you start school delight your parents by showing them the correct way to wear a tie. Which as we all know is wrapped around your forehead like Rambo - its tears of pride that will make your mother cry like that
40. Eat so many sweets/ jelly that you vomit in multi colours - parents like these little crisis' it keep their lives interesting
41. Wake your parents up before six oclock in the morning (despite only having finally fallen asleep at 2) and go from sleeping cherub to bed bouncing devil child immediately.
:) When I read pooh stick, I tought it was an English game, about putting a stick on a "poo" - I just checked how you spell it, and I mean a dog poo. I tought British people knew it as well as I read an article last year on a City in Germany where some people were putting sticks with a flag bearing the face of W Bush. and the police was a bit annoyed, because they couldn't catch the people doing that, and at the same time if they did catch them, there was no existing law forbidding people to put a little W Bush flag on a dog poo.. I can even send you a pic ... Anyone interested ?? ;)
I can honestly say I was having similar disturbing images when I read "pooh sticks". They really pushed the Whinnie the Pooh name as far as they could with that one.
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