the innocence of childhood

Last night my baby attended her first dance. Well, to be politically correct, it was the '6th grade middle school social', with a deejay and a dance floor, but not boy-asks-girl-to-go type of thing. She met up with some friends, partied for 2 hours, then brought 2 of her friends home to have a sleepover. Bed by 11pm and up at 8am for some cinnamon sugar pancakes.

I was struggling with the fact she is growing up, and hearing the giggles and screams of three prepubescent girls made me a little sad. Wasn't it just yesterday she was toddling around in a fat diaper and singing Ba Ba Black Sheep?

The sleepover turned in to an all next day event, with the parents of the other girls happily leaving them to our care. What would the girls do all day? Listen to music? Search YouTube videos on the computer? Play truth or dare? Whisper about boys while laying on Maddi's bed, flipping through teen magazines?

As it turned out, they immersed themselves in play. Imaginative play. Creative play. Innocent play.

My heart is bursting with pride and admiration. These girls spent over 6 hours dreaming up the idea and figuring out the details and playing the final product:

The Taylor Swift Board Game

First they created the playing pieces: Taylor Swift images from the computer, printed out on card stock, cut out and hot glued to rocks so they would stand on their own.

The design of the game board is based on the letters "T" and "S", for country singer Taylor Swift.




The board itself was decorated with scrabble tiles, more photos, ribbons, stickers and markers.
The individual squares of the playing board contained trivia about Taylor's life. With the role of a dice, you moved your 'Taylor' along the T & S and followed the instructions on square you landed on.




Look at the details of these colored tiles they glued down! LOVE ........ it's what I have for this day.