With all the chaos, seriousness, and unplayfulness that can go on around us, this is a nice time of year to stop and think about what we are grateful for. Giving thanks is a great way to take time and appreciate what we have around us, tangible or intangible, and what makes us happy. Here are some of the things I am thankful for this year:

My husband and brand new daughter.
My parents.
My family-in-law.
A house that keeps us warm and dry.
The ability to move, stretch, and play.
The park just down the street from our new house.
The fact that I live in such a beautiful part of the United States.
A love of cooking (if I didn’t love cooking I’d be in serious trouble).
The Internet.
My health and my family’s health.
A love of art.
Sleep.
Coffee.

A creative and tasty way to play with your food. Happy Halloween!
(via Facebook)

Always remember to find the play in your surroundings…
(Photo from Explore.org)

Just a reminder to remember to play and wiggle a little bit today.

I normally keep my posts fairly top-level, and don’t talk much about my personal experiences and research in play (partially because I haven’t been as active in play research lately). But I recently had a personal observation about play I’d like to share:

My husband and I were taking our daughter for a walk recently on a beautiful fall afternoon. We chose a path along a forested creek, with a railing along the walkway. As we walked along the trail admiring the changing of the changing of the leaves, my husband’s hands started to dance along the railing in a sort of run hop skip fashion. This is a fairly common play behavior for both children and grown-ups, but normally grown-ups won’t exhibit this behavior if no one’s watching.I noticed my husband’s dancing hands, and made some joke that his hands were doing parkour.

I should mention that my husband actually teaches parkour, and he is constantly thinking about movement and motion. Instead of getting embarrassed like I’ve seen a lot of grown-ups get when they’re caught with dancing hands, he smiled and said, "yeah, watch this, my hand’s about to do some epic flow work!" With that, his hands exploded into a flurry of movement; his hand suddenly alive started running down the railing, with my husband narrating his hand’s next move. "Now he’s going to to a tic tac off that leaf." "Now watch, HUGE precision leap!" And in this fashion his hand completed the remainder of the trail walk in a flurry of epic parkour movement.

Rather than see this as silly or rare behavior, I think it’s important that adults be more open to opportunities to play and be creative. Being creative in movement is part of my husband’s job, so for him always being open to new movement and techniques, even if it’s his hand performing them, is important to his job. The same could be said for many adults who work in jobs that require creativity or just problem solving. Being open to play and creativity all the time, not just when you need to be "on," is beneficial to your work, but also your overall mental and physical health. Life is about exploration, from birth until death. Why turn your exploration "off" or only turn it on when no one’s watching. You might just inspire someone else.

Thanks Facebook