While parents are emptying their wallets at the pump, children are filling up with excitement over gas prices that may soon reach $6.99 per gallon. These children who are cheering over the rising cost of fuel have no clue how hard you work for the $80 it takes to fill the tank. They have no idea the amount of weekly gas consumed to shuttle them from home to school, to karate, to soccer, to the fast food joint, and back home again. They are blind to the rising costs of every household product that requires natural resources to produce or petroleum to transport.
So, why are children across America cheering for European priced gas? Well, simple, they get to spend
more time with mom and dad at home.
It seems inconceivable today that one would even remember what it is to "hang out" doing nothing. It's time to reclaim the lazy days of summer. Make fresh lemonade, skip rocks in the lake, fish, climb knolls, or camp out in the back yard. Do things that cost less than a dollar and you'll see how priceless it could be.
My best childhood memories are my many local camping trips with my family in our Coleman pop-up camper. We stayed at KOA's less than 15 minutes from our house, showered with a hose, and ate beans straight from a can. I still clearly remember the first bullfrog I ever caught, the first fox I ever saw, and I'll never forget the make-shift toilet paper that turned out to be poison oak growing along the hiking trail.
My all time favorite camp-out happened right in my very own back yard. I was eight years old. My cousins came over and we set up a tent in the back yard and filled it with marshmallows, canteens, flashlights, chips, and the Swiss Army Knife the tooth fairy left under my pillow (I guess she was out of cash that day). My cousins and I waited until the sun went down to begin our night in the wilderness. We stuffed our faces with sweet home-made taffy, salty chips, made scary faces with the flashlights, and laughed so hard my little cousin peed in his pants, which made us laugh even harder. No parents, no rules, just us kids and Mother Nature. Yes, Mother Nature has plenty beauty and many sounds. The one we heard that night sounded, well, too close to our tent and we decided to make a break for the house. The back door to the house was a good 50 yards away and since I was the oldest, I volunteered to go first. We all slept in beds that night but as far as we were concerned our camping trip was a success. And it's a fun memory I'll never forget.
Now's the time to plant that tree with your kids, build that tree house for your kids, be a kid with your kids! Let your children paint their rooms the color they choose, paint their sneakers, or better yet, paint your sneakers. Bake a cake even if you can't bake. Decorate it with two cans of whip cream and eat it. Eat it all with friends, invite the neighbors, or the neighborhood. Block party anybody?
Start building some life-long memories with your children in the place that matters most - your own backyard. You don't need to go far to have fun and with gas prices soaring with eagles, there's no better time to do nothing.
Seth Prezant is the founder and Bugmaster of www.CoolBugStuff.com His award winning web site was created to help promote fascination and education in science using nature’s most abundant creatures…Bugs! Seth is a true EEE (Education & Entertainment Entrepreneur) providing educational and entertaining nature shows for schools, camps, aftercare programs and home school groups all around South Florida. The Bugmaster can be reached @ seth@coolbugstuff.com
You can find many more easy parent/child projects to do together on Seth's website www.coolbugstuff.com.
