When You're (not) Barrels of Fun

Have you forgotten how to play?

(Camping—one of my attempts at play last month!)

Hello Readers!

This week, I’d really love to hear from you! This is what I need to know:

How do you incorporate play in your life? I’m asking for my inner child.

Leave a comment below or simply hit reply to this essay from your inbox and it *should* land in mine.

On to our essay on play!

When I close my eyes, I can still see my son at eight years old sitting across the table from me, red-faced and laughing so hard tears streamed down his cheeks. We’d been talking about fun activities we like to do over a family dinner, and there were snickers at the table when the fun talk turned to me. I can’t remember the exact details, but I imagine I said something self-deprecating because Ethan responded by saying, “No, Mom! You’re barrels of fun!” Except he couldn’t say it with a straight face, and he dissolved into giggles. The rest of us laughed too because it was infectious and silly and an obvious joke—albeit at the least fun parent’s expense.

On Mother’s Day a few years later, the three kids scribbled love notes to me on blue paper hearts and taped them all over the kitchen. I framed “Everyone thinks your amazing” but ten other hearts remain taped inside my tea cupboard.

My kids’ words affirm me every time I brew a cup of tea a decade later. Scribbled on one of the hearts in my son’s distinctive left-handed scrawl are the words “You’re barrels of fun!” It’s a family joke that still rubs like a tiny pebble in my shoe. Not big enough to stop and remove, but I know it’s there, nonetheless.