#SOL16 - 10/31 If It's Wednesday

SOLC #10/31 - 

      I'm slicing with the Two Writing Teachers community for Day Ten of Thirty-One of the Slice of Life Challenge in March.  Thank you Stacey, Tara, Anna, Betsy, Dana, Kathleen, Beth, and Deb.  
       Ramona at Pleasures from the Page wrote a lovely post yesterday celebrating Simple Pleasures, and asked what others' simple pleasures might be.  I loved the way she wrote, and knew one thing I was likely to choose, about one of my granddaughters.   

      If it's Wednesday, after school, that means Imogene, my four year old grand-girl comes to stay, to travel to a park or to play or to read, OR all three. 
       I have various toys still at my house, a box of blocks and one of legos, a bucket of matchbox cars, and a tiny box of cheap plastic wild animals. Imi comes in after school, has a quick snack and starts playing-something. I have grown to understand that this isn't the time to talk much; it's like a decompression from school, rather like the commute home that many say they need. I usually ask if she's had a good day; she usually says "yes". And I ask what was a good part of the day. Today it was that Penelope, her friend at school who had a bad eye accident, got to take off her eye patch. Yes, it's a great school, and yes, Imi does lots of interesting activities, but she also loves her friends, and this eye accident has been much on her mind. 

      I have spent money buying toys for the grandkids. I like toys and there are new ones created every year that look like they would be such fun for "pretend". These tiny plastic animals have been in a small box for years. I imagine they get restless at night and come out to play in between child visits. I suspect I may have picked them up at a garage sale. Today, Imi played with them for about two hours. Here is one picture of the play at my old scarred-by-children table. She needed some ideas for making a "cage" or "enclosure" for the animals, so I cut the bottom and top out of an old check box. That's it. There was grouping, a display of those identified as the "babies", a show (she created a line saying it was a parade. She hummed sometimes, and talked as if she was one of the animals sometime. It's a peaceful time sitting and watching a child play, "hearing" the thoughts (almost like eavesdropping). 
        And then there's the reading. We read Irene Latham's Fresh Delicious: Poems From The Farmer's Market and David Wiesner's Mr. Wuffles tonight. Imi loved both, spent her own time looking and looking at Mr. Wuffles after we read it. It is a wordless picture book, but includes some interaction between Mr. Wuffles (a cat) and some space aliens-yes, really! Imi is in love with Star Wars! When you read to Imi, she listens and interacts with the tension, and knows that not all stories are easy to resolve, but soon will be. She observes with attention. Later, I found her on a corner of the sofa, re-reading both, and before we left for home, she asked to read more poems from Irene. 
         

My Simple Pleasure on Wednesdays