Thursday, May 29, 2008

Normal - What IS Normal

For me "normal" is having my kids close to me.  Letting them have some freedom, having them help me cook, clean and talking to them about lots of stuff.  Normal is also "read-alouds", quiet time, and a certain amount of electronics (video games being the most obvious electronics in our house).  Normal for summer is also spending a lot of time swimming (for me sitting by the pool watching kids), lots of projects, camp for the younger ones, and some amount of boredom for the kids which leads the younger two to create, play imaginary games, and spend time outside and even some TV thrown in there.  

I grew up in a "not so normal" family with a teacher for a mom and a preacher for a dad.  We didn't have a TV until I was in high school and then it was black and white and basically just to play Atari.  So, as a younger child, during the summer, we played outside and mostly read.  That was basically it.  We went on one great two-week vacation every year and of course I went to camp every year.  Other than that, we just hung out.  So, what is normal or is there a normal?  
Just wondering......anyone willing to weigh in?

2 comments:

friend S said...

Tell me about your Great two week vacations. That sounds like a dream. I can't say that we never went on vacation, but mostly our vacations were to see out of town family. That was normal to us.
Curious,
friend s

rosegirl said...

We went all over the country on vacation. Every other year, we went to the conference sponsored by our denomination. Those were in places like Anaheim, Denver, Miami, Baltimore, and San Antonio.

The "off" years we went to place like Maine, Tennessee (this one repeated a lot), Florida, etc. Some of these trips we camped for the entire trip. I have just gotten over those camping trips and will actually camp for one night with my family now!!