Ah, there’s nothing like spring in Nebraska.  When it finally gets here.   There’s something magical watching little girls at recess in their summer dresses and sandals, running through the grass, chasing butterflies, with bows bouncing in their hair.  There’s a sweet innocence about the scene, laughter, squeals, yelling and shouting to each other as they play.

Over on the soccer field there were thirteen boys and one girl.  The first kick was a doozy, landing squarely in the girls face.  I walked over to see if she was ok, watching as she kept licking her lip and touching her tongue to see if she was bleeding.  I looked at her face which was red but not bruising or swelling and I said, “well kiddo, there’s no blood or guts.  Are you ok?”  (Sorry – I raised boys). Never shedding a tear, she quietly said, “I’m ok” and ran off at full speed to play soccer again.  I’ve always wanted to be that girl but honestly I’m a weeny butt.  I mean, I wouldn’t have tried to play soccer in the first place.

Left to their own devices, kids will figure out how to play together.  They create a line and a list of rules to shoot basketball.  Not just in the basketball goal but also in the cart that holds all the balls AND the crate that holds the soccer shirts. They of course never use the playground equipment as it was intended by whoever builds this stuff.  They never expect kids to jump from place to to place on the merry go round instead of sitting on it or expect some little boy to take a rolly polly bug and get it stuck in the middle of the merry go round. (When the boys panicked I told him the bug would figure it out – “nature finds a way”). They also don’t expect kids to sit on top of the monkey bars instead of swinging from them or jumping off of the climbing wall instead of climbing up.  Balls are used on the slides, both up and down.  We have a group of kids right now who have opened their own little massage parlor under the playground equipment where friends can come by and get their shoulders massaged and their backs pounded, never thinking twice about whether or not this is a weird thing to do, and I’m certainly not going to make it weird.  But is IS weird, isn’t it?  Kids.

Yep, there’s nothing like recess duty at an elementary school, and nothing like recess duty to remind you of recesses when you were a kid many years ago.  All the girls in my school having to wear those cute little dresses because we weren’t allowed to wear pants to school. There’s a huge difference for girls today who can choose to wear dresses because they want to and not because they have to.  Things have changed. Some for the better of course.  I mean, thank goodness the kids don’t know anything about Red Rover or Dodgeball anymore. And I’m afraid of soccer balls.  I would rather stick with bows and butterflies myself.