Laughing, skating, and dads

My street is a funny place. A place where laughs are shared with careless abandon, skateboards provide meaningful transport, and wine is drunk in groups at the side of the road! A strange and unusual place to live!

According to my calculations, our small stretch of road comprises 24 houses in which 27 children lay their heads at night. And there is at least one more on the way! This incredible piece of arithmetic genius excludes all of the bigger kids, the ones with real leather wallets and the coolest toys. To say there is plenty of action on our street would be putting things mildly. Always somebody to play with and some or other set of wheels to be ridden, kids paradise!

Friday night saw 5 dads on skateboards and multitudes of children enjoying the pleasures of well greased ball bearings on axels. Dads are fully involved in the play, including special moves like lie on the road as fast as possible from coasting on board, and lets test how hot these chillies really are! Luckily for the dads, cold beer provides welcome relief from our sillier antics and refreshes far better than Oros. Last night our impromptu gathering ended at the half pipe at my house. Strangely, the only injury being one big kid with a few new dents in his ankle.

I like the fact that as dads, we are involved in the play with our children. I like that they can see us trying to push ourselves, and having fun with each other. Most of our relationships with our children are serious and it is good to be able to get down to their level and just enjoy time spent doing silly things.

Three of the children belong to a new neighbour who just moved in. When he walked away from my house with three skateboards under his arms, only one of which was his sons, I knew he would be fitting right in!