Things I love outside of biking that include my bear cubs: 1. I read them books, and have done since they were babes. Even at 13 and 10, they love it. We’ve been all over the world and to other worlds, too. We’ve crawled into the wardrobe to have tea with a faun, and met a terrifying and good lion who gave us the kingdom. We have graduated wizarding school and made the best friends we could have ever dreamed up, learned to stand for Good when no one else would and defeated our mortal enemy in a final act of selflessness. We have avoided capture from man-eating trolls and, in a reversal of fortune, left them as stone statues, so there! Most recently, we fought our way out of an arena to start a revolution and overthrow a cruel and oppressive government. We have made foods we learned about in these books, and we have talked at length about what the stories were trying to teach us. Take them to the library - tons of free programs. Go to Barnes and Noble story time and let them choose a book to buy. Bonus points if you let them have their very own library card and book bag.
2. Adult coloring for you, regular coloring for them. When they were little, we’d sit together with hot chocolate and music and talk about all the things little people want to know while we filled in black and white spaces with color. I love anything by Johanna Basford, a young Scottish darling who kicked off the adult coloring craze with her first book, Secret Garden. Bonus points if you splurge on the Sakura gel pens with glitter ink. 3. Cooking. It is a universal fact that kids love to help in kitchens. We got aprons and chef’s hats and a Harry Potter recipe book and went nuts. Bonus points if they help with dinner prep and learn about what nutrients specific foods offer and how they help the body! 4. “Adventuring.” This is done mostly by bike nowadays, because it’s faster and they like fast. But we would go out for nature walks and they would crawl over rocks and make forts and and look for creatures. We would do a “park tour” in our California days, where I would stuff them in the bike trailer and we would hit one park after another via bike on the paseos until we made our way home. Bonus points if you bring a picnic lunch. Double bonus points if you bring their stuffed animals and set them up at your picnic. 5. Movie night. In our CA days, we lived in a tight neighborhood. I was best friends with 3 families who had kids the same ages. One couple would host movie and popcorn night at their house while the rest of the couples had a date. Could be dinner, could be an ice cream or a walk at the pretty outdoor mall. Bonus points if your friends are from elsewhere - all our friends were from India and taught my kids their mother-tongues while our kids were in their homes. 6. NATIONAL PARKS! These are the gems of our United States and nearly everyone lives by one! (State parks are grand, too.) They are affordable and memorable and good for the mind, body and soul. One year we just hit every national park in driving distance and had a ball. Bonus points if you sing songs on the drive. I wish you minivans and road trips and chapter books and good food made with tiny people in tiny aprons. Bonus points if you report back here with photos and stories. Leah -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/1cf6429e-7ee7-4a13-b967-52500080d716%40googlegroups.com.
