March 2000

by DirtWitch
for MotherSpirit

I have wonderful memories of playing from my childhood. The strongest memories, complete with sensory input, smell, touch, taste involved time alone in nature or when I was involved in art making. I remember that we had a seemingly huge sumac grove out front that grew in a protective circle around MY play space. Inside that space, under a canopy of green leaves and sour red sumac flowers I spent an endless amount of time in imaginative play, I was a witch mixing up sumac lemonade brews for myself and the fairies, a tree spirit living in my own castle, Gretel to my brother's Hansel. A stream ran along the edge of our property and through the seasons I made boats from chunks of bark that raced along in the quick flow of spring run off, fed minnows oatmeal, basked on a

warm rock that could be a castle fortress, a desert, or the site of fairy magick, caught frogs, modeled dishes and cups from the sticky mud of midsummer dry spells. I remember digging in the ground, recognizing plants from where they grew each year and just from the leaves, the earthy sweet taste of raspberries, the fresh GREEN of lettuce and peas, the hard work of shucking corn to eat it raw and sugary still sitting amongst the tall whispering rows of cornstalks. I remember the joy of making tracks  through virgin fields of fresh snow, all the different types of snow from crystal flakes like sparkling icing sugar to sticky wads that formed huge snowballs for forts and snow people. I remember waking to find a field completely covered in blooming dandelions one day and taking my paper and paints down into it - rubbing pollen between my fingers and drenching my paper in yellows and dabs of green. Then harvesting arm loads of those flowers to make crowns, to give bouquets to my mother, to see made into dandelion syrup and wine.

I remember leaving out milk and bread for the house brownie so he wouldn't play tricks on us...making a wish when I heard the cricket that lived in my room...I remember squealing with terror and laughter at fairy tales and German morality stories and bringing those characters into my own imaginative play. I remember my father telling us stories about his childhood , fears, hopes and dreams. I remember my Opa's finger puppet plays and stories of naughty squirrels and bossy mice. You know what I don't really remember? Toys. Toys were, for the most part, secondary to the work I was doing experiencing the world around me. 

Because of my memories from childhood, and the reading I've done on child development, on social anthropology, and on Waldorf based philosophies around children's play I feel very strongly that we need to take children's work - playing - very seriously. I also feel that we need to protect our children from the negative influences of a commercial society that through it's greed puts physically dangerous toys into the marketplace and more commonly psychically damaging toys into that marketplace. A commercial society that also promotes toys that take the natural work and learning of play away from children and substitutes it with lessons on being a good consumer. If I felt an early education on

greed, keeping up with the Joneses no matter the cost, and the nature of trading on the stock market would make my child a happier, more fulfilled adult I'd encourage him to play with Pokemon. My goal as a parent is to help my child develop into a genuinely happy individual who has high self esteem, and follows his dreams no matter how farfetched they seem. I want to see him develop into an adult who finds real value in the work he does and really knows what it's like to be satisfied, to feel at peace with himself. This journal gives me a place to explore ways of facilitating these core values.

So how can we help our children find that peace through play? I think we do it by allowing them into *our* world from birth, by not interfering with their independent play, and by facilitating their need to connect with the natural world around them. Toys should be treated as tools in facilitating these things, and they should always be secondary to the experience and imagination children bring to their work.

In play therapy, observing a child's imaginative play allows a therapist insight into the issues a child is dealing with. The play is the therapy. Through play, acting out conflicts and concerns a child works through these things on their own terms. A play therapy playroom contains the most basic toys to encourage free imaginative play. It's clear to me that imaginative play vital to a child's healthy inner development. They find inner peace through REAL play. Real play is uninhibited imaginative work. I'm due with my second child in a few months and have been thinking a lot about this baby's needs and the work they'll do in that first year or two.

What babies need:

• to be carried, to hear your heartbeat, and feel the natural rhythm of your body's movement as you go about your day

• to have their cues responded to *before* they must resort to crying for nourishment, for comfort, for attention

• to observe your work and your world from your arms until they are ready to venture out and explore on their own and to feel safe in the knowledge that your arms are still there when they need them

• to explore with all their senses - to touch EVERYTHING around them with hands and feet and cheeks, to feel the sun on their heads, the wind ruffling their hair, to feel snow and rain, to smell all sorts of wonderful natural things, to taste rocks, and cotton, and wool, and wood, and fingers and toes, and the sweet of your milk, and when they are ready - to reach out and taste the peach that dribbles juice on your chin and the sour of that slice of lemon in your water, to hear voices laughing, raised in song, to hear birds and waves and the wind in the trees, to hear drums and strings and brass horns. To see where all these wonderful things come from, to see them disappear and reappear before them, to identify their newness and then their familiarity. To do all these things on their own terms when they are ready for them to be outside for even a short while every single day regardless of the weather

What babies don't need:

• to be entertained with mechanical toys that replace real experiences, and taught that these things are a substitute for a parent's comfort and attention.

• a million brightly coloured toys that do things with the push of a button or the winding of a key, and that baby simply observes plastic toys that introduce harmful toxins into their systems and the environment

• toys that mimic genuine articles in their environment.

What kind of toys facilitate a baby's work?

    Very few toys! Here's a list of things we've made or found useful along the way.

    The first year:

        - From our toy workshop, and from the natural world:

• mobiles - with natural things like glass beads, feathers, silk ribbons, beach glass or shells

• cotton terry cloth teething toys - knotted ropes and little pillow like animals or people with a variety of textures depending on how firmly they're stuffed with terry scraps (these freeze well damp for sore gums, absorb a lot of drool, and can be machine washed and dried)

• soft textured cotton interlock rattle dollies - simple pillow

• dolls with bells or shakers of rice inside, stuffed with wool roving so they warm to the touch and are again, washable.

• felt balls to knead and squish and throw and have retrieved again and again

• cotton bean bags with different textures to heft and throw and feel and chew on when the urge strikes

• simple rag doll puppets - that older children can put on and do plays for baby with. That baby can put on and mimic older children with (ours are simple shapes - either in plain muslin or tie dyed in soft colours - no faces! Emotions come from voice and action)

• lots of different scraps of different textured fabrics pieced together to feel and play with

• seed pod shakers when they fall from the trees, handfuls of grass and leaves, pine cones with supervision, large smooth rocks, big shells, snowballs, pieces of bark, flowers to pull apart petal by petal

        - From other talented people's workshops:

• beautiful sounding wind chimes and bells

• natural teething rattles made from safe nontoxic woods without any kind of finish

• nesting boxes or baskets to put things in, pull things out of, stack and knock down

• wooden stacking rings that have a simple peg so they can stack their rings any way they like, not in a regimented order.

• a big rubber ball to chase and throw and roll on top of once they're creeping.

• a wire and bead maze to track things with, to develop their pincher grasp with, to share with older siblings who love them as well

    The second year:

           - From our toy workshop, and from the natural world:

• a small simple woolen rag dolly - ours is made from a knit sweater and stuffed with wool it is a simple poppet shape and has only embroidered eyes.

• coloured silks

• a few simple felt animals they know

• nature blocks from cut logs

• finger paints made from foods mixed with cornstarch

• homemade play dough

• anything from nature they want to bring home from walks - pretty stones and shells, beach glass, sticks and pussy willows

           - From other workshops:

• a simple set of hardwood blocks

• a few peg puzzles

• a few wooden cars or push and pull toys

• sand and water pans

• block crayons

• wax paper for finger painting on

• a big roll of white paper to begin colouring on.

	BOOKS!!!! Read to your baby! You can read anything when they're infants and they will simply respond to the special cadence your voice takes on.  We read Christina Rossetti poems to Tyren as a baby all the time. Good quality books don't have to be a big expense for you either. Use your library, identify favorites and only purchase the ones that get read over and over again.
THE ARTS!!!! Expose your baby to live music, singing, theatre, puppet shows, sculpture, and paintings. In my experience the more these things are a part of your every day life the longer your child's attention span will be, the more they will appreciate and incorporate them into their own lives as they grow older. This exposure doesn't have to cost a thing either. Create art yourself, use homemade instruments, sing, visit free art galleries and get big beautiful art books out of the library.