Pottering about with sticks
Having had colds for a few weeks, and the weather not being great, we’ve not managed to get out and about that much recently. But never one to agree to staying inside, N’s happy to make the most of any opportunity.
On Thursdays he’s at the local nursery school which finishes at 3, so one of the staff brings him home and looks after him until we get back from work. I’m sure he spends all this time telling her what to do and what he wants to do, and this week it seems that he wanted to play in the garden. When I came back and saw he was in a change of clothes I assumed it was from nursery and he’d got wet there, but it turned out he’d been playing in the rain filled water table and had got a tad overexcited. It wasn’t the warmest weather yesterday, but when he’s engrossed in play, he doesn’t seem to worry about that.
When I arrived home, we nipped over to the farm but he refused to come inside with me. So he quite happily wonder around talking to the dog while I grabbed what I needed.
I found him near the door with a stick. Likely a stick that the dog had stolen from somewhere as it didn’t look like a twig, but a bit of wood which had been broken off the wooden fence or gate. But N didn’t care. All he was interested in was gouging out the driveway and making shapes in the gravel.
It took a long while to walk the 100 yards or so of the drive back to ours as every few metres, he needed to squat and poke the stick at the drive again.
We did detour to see if the lone 2 conker cases we’d spotted at the top of the horse chestnut tree in the garden had dropped. There was no sign of the cases, but miraculously the 2 conkers were still under the tree, and hadn’t been picked up by the dogs. So that’s another 2 to add to our collection.
As long as N’s had a reasonable amount of time allowed to potter and explore outside, he’s usually happy to head back into the house when asked. I think we’d really struggle if we didn’t have the space to just be able to wander as it does allow him to get outside even if the weather’s not great and we’re not going anywhere in particular.
Give a boy a stick, and he’s going to be happy.
I’m linking this post up to Country Kids. Check out below for what everyone else has been up to.
I laughed when you said …give a boy a stick … because my son just seems to pick up an endless collections of sticks and stones.
#countrykids
Oh god, the stones as well! Our whole drive is stones, and we’ve got smaller ones in the back garden…it does mean his diggers and tractors get well used outside as well as in. When we go to my mum’s, she has different stones and we have to take a digger with us for him to play outside with! Easily pleased.
Oh yes we love sticks here. Envious of all that space you have to wander!
Definitely very lucky. Makes life easier than having to either walk a 3 mile round trip along rural roads with the pushchair or driving there to the nearest park. Will be handy when he can walk longer distances across the fields as that’ll cut the walk a bit
And so the love affair with sticks begin, all our children love to grab a stick and wander with it – just like cardboard boxes it’s one of those things that children love. Great photos of N having the freedom to explore and have fun in his own garden. Thanks for linking up and sharing with Country Kids.
Just goes to show we don’t need to venture far to keep them happy! 🙂
Definitely a relief when it gets to poorer weather. N’s even been playing in the water table today.
Bob finds sticks fascinating too! I have even seen stick envy in some children. 🙂 x
Ha ha, I’m not surprised. Sticks are very useful things, don’t you know?! N’s lucky the dogs don’t take them off him.