Childhood Games

What games did you play as a child that required use of imagination? What did you play on a rainy Saturday afternoon? What household items did you use as props to aid you in your drama?

I am the oldest of 12 children. There are four girls and eight boys in my family. We grew up in a house without a television. We NEVER had a television, ever. That meant there was lots of "down time" for us to play and invent games using our imaginations.

I remember playing this game called "Sue and Joe." Myself and my brother, Timothy, who is 17 months younger than I, would pretend to be these two people called Sue and Joe. My sister, Katie, who is four years younger than I, would always be the dog. She was always a collie and her name was always Shep. I don't quite remember what Sue and Joe did, but we probably just played house or some game that mimicked what we saw adults doing.

There are pictures of Timothy and I, dressed in dress-up clothes, sitting on the arm of the couch. Piled on the couch behind us are all of our toys, covered in blankets. We were "going on vacation." The ever present baby doll was on my lap.

When there were more siblings and it was time to clean up our toys, we would play "Noah's Ark." We'd spread out a big blanket on the floor, pile all the toys in the middle of the blanket (even the ones that were already in their proper places), and then put them all away. It would take hours.

I'm sure there were more, but I'd have to ask my siblings what else we did. What prompted this memory was Saturday afternoon. I was upstairs painting on Saturday and heard my girls playing downstairs. As I listened, I realized they were pretending to be "poor Russian Jewish immigrants on a boat on their way to America." I peeked over the bannister to get a glimpse of their costumes which had come from the overflowing dress-up box. They each had on a long skirt and a scarf tied around their head. The living room floor had been transferred into a ship room with beds (made from the couch cushions) and a small table (the piano bench) with a single candle, cups of water and dry crackers for their food. I heard Belle (who I think was the mom) tell the children that if they didn't go to sleep, she was going to call the Prime Minister.

I was going to listen to a CD or the radio while I was painting, but after listening to their conversation, I decided that their little drama was much more entertaining. Three of their friends came over for an hour and joined right in the game. When it was time for their friends to go home, I called the dad and told him the "poor Russian Jewish immigrants" had disembarked and were on the way to their new home. His response was classic. "Then I'll go and lift my lamp beside the golden door." :-)

I absolutely LOVE to listen to my girls when they use their imaginations to play. We have a television, but I'm so glad that they're capable and willing to leave it turned off and play creatively with each other and their friends. During the summer they play pioneers, Indians, and we've even had a hobo jungle. I think if I and other parents all over the country could secretly capture children "playing and pretending," it would make a most entertaining and quality TV show. It'd certainly be better than most of wha's out there.

So, what "pretend" games did you play as a child?

Rainbows and Promises

Lest you be fooled by the words "Rainbow Manor" in my blog title and think that I live in a house as large, gracious and expansive as the name "Manor" would indicate, I am here to set the record straight. I do not. But, I do live in a house that was built in 1905 and has all the charm and character that a house from that period would be expected to have.

The main floor of the house consists of a kitchen (with a little room off to the south that I guess you could call a butler's pantry), laundry room (that was formerly the bathroom), very large bathroom with two huge windows (used to be a downstairs bedroom), dining room/living room that is one large room, and a hallway leading to upstairs.

Upstairs are three small bedrooms with three small closets.

The house has a porch that extends all the way across the front (which faces east) but has been enclosed. We currently use it for storage. We have grand plans to turn 2/3 of it into a library and open the other 1/3 so we can use the actual front door to the house and I can have room for a porch swing.

There was a second-story porch on the house which was also enclosed. It measures about 3-1/2 feet wide and 10 feet long. This will be my husband's office and room to store his hunting and fishing equipment. He wanted one space in the house that was his and his alone. It's not very big, but he's not claustrophobic.

Over the main part of the house is a HUGE walk-up attic. As attics usually are, it's filled with Christmas decorations, boxes of out-of-season clothes for the girls, coolers, suitcases, books that have no shelf to decorate, and many things that need to be donated or sold. This space will eventually be a master bedroom suite for hubby and me with a bathroom all our very own.

Over the kitchen, there is a smaller attic. To enter this attic, you must go into the south bedroom, into the closet and open the left wall of the closet which is actually a door into the attic. This space is currently filled with blankets, camping equipment, a mattress, a chair and lamp, and out-of-season clothes that belong to hubby and me. This space will eventually be a playroom for the girls.

Under the house is a cellar. It cannot be called a basement. It's probably very much like the cellar at your grandparent's house. It houses all the canning equipment, canned food, freezer, hubby's tools, furnace, oil tank and various other things. There are no future plans for this space. It can only be a cellar.

The first floor of the house has 9-10 foot ceilings, 6-inch oak woodwork around all the windows, solid oak doors and 10-inch oak baseboard. The floors are beautiful hardwood and the staircase is all wood. The ceilings are lower in the bedrooms but the hardwood floors and woodwork are the same except that the woodwork is painted inside the bedrooms.

One of the reasons I named my house Rainbow Manor is because rainbows have seven colors and there are seven people in our family. Each is unique and beautiful in its own way. Each of us has a different favorite color. Belle and I like red, Aurora's is yellow, Snow White's is green, Ella's is blue and hubby's is purple. There's only one color left -orange. The four older princesses are convinced that littlest princess can't have any other favorite color than orange. We'll see!

There are three leaded glass windows in my house. One in the dining room, one in the living room and one in the front hallway. The glass is the living room window is beveled. As the seasons change from winter to spring and fall to winter, the sun shines through the east-facing living room window and paints rainbows all over my walls.

The five princesses love the rainbows as do I. They run around putting their hands on the walls and feet on the floors so that the rainbows will decorate their skin. The rainbows make us smile. But, best of all, they remind me of my Heavenly Father. When I see a rainbow, either in my house or in the summer sky, it reminds me that God is thinking about me and being faithful in keeping all His promises. Thus, the name for my house and my blog.