Hi.

I’m back.

After weeks, no months, wait… years?!? of not writing I am finally exiting out of baby-landia and getting back in the game. All of a sudden I have two actual kids, no more babies, and am finding that I actually have time to think about life. Time to contribute to something beyond the changing of bums and filling of mouths and “uppies mama”. So I thought I’d start by writing again.

I’ll start in with an easy post. What have I been doing for the past few years? You know aside from the whole diapering and feeding and holding. Which, believe me, is enough. Way more than enough. Enough to fill many a day and night.

But, on the days when I did have some spare energy, I’ve been a part of a mini movement in Whanganui. A movement of committed and sometimes slightly looney parents who are revitalizing the lost art of playing outside. Yep. Just playing. Outside. It is awesome.

We started as a few of us just getting together, then we became a facebook group, and currently we meet up weekly as a play group. It is the best part of my week, hands down, every week.

There is a lot that goes into the philosophy behind Forest Kindergartens and Forest Schools, and I am sure I will go into it in more detail in later posts. It has become a bit of a passion for me now. But put most simply, I love our nature play days because they allow me, no force me, to stop and just be with my kids in nature.

We play. We run. We splash. It is really that simple.

I don’t spend as much time outside with my kids as I want to. And the time we do spend is often while I am doing a chore, or my mind is occupied thinking about what chores I could be doing. Nature play is a scheduled interruption from that cycle. It is a forced pause in our lives to spend time as our “Zone Five” selves.

No matter the weather, or adventure, or misadventure (i.e. massive steep hill climb with toddlers in tow only to find out you’re headed the wrong way) the results are always positive. Nature play = happy mama = happy kids.