24 May 2008

The Best Way to Show Your Kids Nature in an Urban Jungle


When I take my daughter, *Mila*, out places to explore I expect her to get valuable lessons from each adventure. Yesterday we visited Bronte Park. It's such a nice Provincial Park and there is a lot for kids to do there. *Mila* has been begging me to take her to the Play Barn there for weeks. With the weather this Spring not cooperating, we dared it yesterday and took our chances. It was perfect in the end, other than putting our sweatshirts on and off.
It amazes me how the same 2 blonde haired, blue eyed kids with their thick European accents show up there every time we are there and manage to find the exact same spot as us for our duration at the park. They manage to oust all the other kids out of the treehouse at the playground and then proceed to throw rocks at them, while their caregiver (?or mother?) looks up at the sky thinking about her father the war criminal and how she wishes she could have a war for her son to fight in. Um, Lady....I think he's started one already! Anyhow, I digress.
What I wanted to say was this. We met up with 2 lovely couples in their senior years of life. They talked to *Mila* with wonderment and appreciated the values and lessons she was learning there at the park while we stood over top of 6 pigs with large turds hanging from their rears. We started to play "I saw a bigger animal than you" with them. We told them about the baby pigs across the park. They of course had seen them. Then we said we petted the bunnies. They didn't see those, but they saw some cows. Then they wanted to know if we had seen the peacocks. Yes, we saw the peacocks. THEN, the one gentleman told us that they had seen a deer earlier in the woods. He corrected himself, "Well, by Parking Lot A". Parking Lot A? Is this now known as the woods? I thank my parents for allowing me to see nature in nature's natural environment. The other day *Mila* asked us what the "environment" was. A very valid question and she got two different answers from her parents. To *Steve* it meant the woods and to me it meant the planet. Which one is it for you? Is it green and lush? Is it your personal Eden or Utopia? Or is it where you actually live, work and play? Make your choice and make your bed - now lie in it!
signed, the willow

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