The Simple Pleasures

I've been thinking a lot about my own childhood lately, especially since I wrote the excerpt HOME, THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE IT from Hot Summer Nights...and Days feature.  What was it like for us growing up?  How would you describe your childhood to your own offspring?  What are your favorite memories as a child with your family?  Our five senses (touch & feel, see, taste, smell & hear) certainly go beyond our over-stimulated, plugged-in, never-alone-with-our-own-thoughts current culture and were my inspiration for the below list, let's call it...

...a sensory walk into the days of our own childhood.  

What were your favorites?

#1 TOUCH & FEEL : Water.  I grew up in Leucadia less than a mile from the beach, no one needed pools as they were completely unnecessary; why jump into a man-made body of chlorinated water when you had Mother Nature's flowing ocean at your toe-tips?  Times have changed and now we live in the desert, pools are second nature to all of us Mojave dwellers.  That said, we went old school this weekend and recreated the mini, personal, eighties-style pool.  Think Edward Scissorhands.  It was fabulous.  Kids loved to fill up their own pools (very exciting) and they floated & floated, literally meditated for an hour in their personal pool pods.  I had no idea they'd be so sedate, so relaxed, so tranquil.  A much different experience than our big pool.  Although be careful of that first spritz from the hose, it can be scalding.

#2 SEE : The Box.  The cardboard box.  We grabbed two large Home Depot boxes from our garage and kids have been playing inside them all weekend long.  My husband tricked out the brown rigs with holes for the ipad charger, placed comfy pillows inside and boys loved to close the lid & hibernate.  In a world full of multi-sensory invasiveness, let's call this their turn-off the over-stimulation / turn on their senses and enjoy their own solitude escape.  Believe it or not, 90% of the time was spent with them giggling next to one another, lids closed-yet-peeking-through and swaying side-to-side.  ipads were forgotten.  Hallelujah.

#3 TASTE : Cook.  I've been embracing my children's culinary imagination lately, instead of the reactive "noooo...that's gross!" reply I've been giving their masterminds serious consideration (as long as it doesn't involve wasting food).  First thing on the to-do list, create gummy worm soup as seen in Despicable Me 3.  Yes, I'm serious.  I want them to trust their imagination and see their vision into fruition.  How can I blame them?  One of our favorite shows is Chef's Table (Alex Atala is my husband's favorite) and our go-to, feel-good movie is the utterly luscious, soundtrack-epic, food-truck-embracing CHEF (both available on Netflix, we heart you Netflix).  My husband and I always eat what's left-over anyways and, as far as I'm concerned, a good experimentation is vital for their developing brain.  

It's STEAM for your kitchen.

#4 SMELL :  Our son is a smeller.  He smells everything.  He identifies smells way before they're even on our sensory radar; detects rain before the weatherman has announced a downpour, smells butter when I've just taken it out of the foil, cracked eggs before I've cooked them, tells people he can smell them (yes!) and leads with his nose, always.  I'm convinced he'll be a Perfumer as his nose is fine-tuned and already wonderfully sophisticated.  On the other hand, this makes him a snob.  If something smells off he won't eat it.  If he doesn't like the new laundry detergent he'll ask for a different outfit from the old lot.  How in the world do I promote this talent into a skill?  I engage him, showing interest, before he comments.  "Honey, what does this smell like?  What does it remind you of?  Have you been here before?"  They say smell is a sure-fire way to transport yourself to another time in your life, how incredible to have a child so tuned-in to this memory-making superpower.  Smell, one of our least revered senses.  I want to get back to the days of yesteryear when we were fine-tuned to our surroundings, hang-drying herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme) and burning the cleansing bundles (me, not him).  We often diffuse essential oils.  I'd like to bake herbed-up bread in a dutch oven with him.   The movie Off the Map is a favorite, our eldest son was conceived & born on the enchanted land of New Mexico where the movie takes place; notice the matriarch's drying herbs in the kitchen?  Remember your grandmother's kitchen was always filled with hanging dried herbs, not dried herbs in the glass jars bought from Whole Foods?  Smell, it's all around us.

#5 HEAR :  Classical.  Music.  On.  Always.  Yes, I have MAMA guilt around the ipad, as I've said before it's a blessing and a curse (thank you, Kathryn Smith).  Sometimes I need them on that thing so I can get things DONE.  This summer I decided to be diligent about classical music and have it on ALWAYS, like my mother did when we were young.  Watching TV?  Kids on ipad?  Kids in the bath?  Kids baking with you?  Walking down you hallway?  We don't have surround sound in our home but we do have many devices all of which I tune the radios to Nevada Public Radio's 89.7; all day, every day (unless we're rocking out to Jack White and his offerings, of course).

Classical music in the background, always.  

Kids are so sophisticated now, appear to be way more scholastically inclined at a younger age and are connoisseurs of their preferred environment.  I want them to rely on their five senses, their own instincts, listen to themselves in this over-stimulated, strange new cyber world we live in.  Teach the simple ways as well as propelling towards the future.  No matter what, I want them to be comfortable with their own thoughts as the lights go out, electronics turn off and they're nodding off to sleep.  That sacred time I want to promote their five senses

and the skill of how to BE.