When you were little you would probably play in the sandbox or in the wood chips. You would use the little sand digger and dig deeper into the same hole in the sand that was already there (and really not get any deeper). Of course everyone had to take turns and that meant pushing each other off the seat to get your turn to dig. Luckily falling into sand did not really hurt or scrape up your body.

You are looking at the clock. It is almost noon. You know what that means?! RECESS!!! What I wouldn’t give to have recess again! The fresh air, the fun slides, the time to spend searching for toads in the grass. Twenty-five minutes of playtime made the school day much more appealing and made it go by faster. As a child your favorite part of the day was being able to go outside and play on every piece of steel and metal you could find. Whether it was the wood chips on the ground or the monkey bars hanging in the air, you went on it all.

In elementary school, everyone was on the monkey bars. We would try and see how far across we could get before dropping down. Some of us would hold on for dear life, trying to create bigger calluses. Once we had mastered going across the monkey bars, then we got into tricks. We would hang from our legs, swing up to sit on top of the bars, or try and skip a bar or two. Many scrapes, bruises and calluses came from those bars, but they all were meaningful to us as we accomplished many new triumphs on those bars.

Moving on up to middle school we got into kickball, chips, football, different jump rope games and some dodge ball. Who does not love a little kickball? Some girls could stand in the back and gossip while others were up front and center ready to catch a line kick. When it came to chips, everyone always played. Most of the time we were all too chicken to even go on the chips, afraid that the person would call out chips and we would be caught. Football was left for mostly the guys to play (I tried one day and got knocked out with a concussion trying to tackle a guy). The cute little jump rope games were for girls to play to see how long they could jump in a row (in reality it was to beat other girls high jump numbers). If we were not playing dodge ball in gym that day we were playing it during recess. It was a simple game that everyone could be included in.

Soon high school came and we no longer had any playground time. All of those memories would be cherished for a life time, but never truly able to be relived. Some of us will always be children at heart, while some of us will get to experience that all over again through our children's eyes.