The McGuyver of Imagination

My kids are like McGuyver with their imaginations. With just a blanket, a few stuffed animals, and some string, they can play "Zoo" for a while, then by adding some toy plates, they are chefs on the cooking show.

I love to watch them play and create different "worlds" with just their imagination and a few toys. I think that too many toys offered today don't encourage kids to use their brain. Baby dolls that do everything from talk to crap their diaper, video games, etc. When I was their age, my parents couldn't afford many toys for us. With nine kids to take care of, they did the best they could.

But my dad was awesome. He worked at the school district office and would bring us home unwanted books, broken cameras, tape recorders, microscopes and a whole slew of other things that the school was throwing out. My younger brother and I loved it when he brought stuff home. I remember when he brought home some black cases that used to house some kind of tape recordings. At that time, the show Emergency was out and we pretended we were paramedics, using the cases to house our "equipment".

Once, he brought home an old broken reel to reel recorder. He fixed it and gave it to us to play with. We would record all kids of things, pretend we were having an adventure or radio show.

When I see my kids playing like that, it takes me back to my child hood. I am glad they have such good imaginations. It will help them through life, especially the way things are going now.