TS Crawford

Sometimes We Just Need to Play

Just BE InspiredBy TS Crawford December 19, 2017 1 Comment

Play is a powerful tool. For children, it helps their minds create connections between neurons, helps them promote development of coping mechanisms, and lets them experience different interactions in a safe and controlled manner. It is a major part of how they learn to navigate the world around them.

For adults, it has different, but no less important, purposes. When adults play, they are able to let go of daily stresses and be present in the moment, if only briefly. This can be extremely difficult when you have responsibilities at work, dependents at home, and things need to get done. What are you doing playing when you have so many things to do?!

When we, as adults, allow ourselves to release our stresses and interact with our bodies and environments freely, our brains are able to move the fast pace and constant stimulus to the back burner and just be.

The Fun Dad

Just BE InspiredBy TS Crawford November 15, 2017

As a kid, it always baffled me how boring and controlling grownups could be. Why did everything have to be so serious? Do people just get less fun as they got older? Not me, I thought. I’m going to be fun even when I’m all grown up.

Fast forward to the nightly ritual in which I find myself currently mired. I chase my three-year-old around with a toothbrush getting increasingly frustrated as time goes on, so that by the time I’m actually brushing her teeth I have to fight to keep from aggressively attacking her mouth and anything else near it with the toothbrush to the detriment of her health and safety.

Learn From Your Kids and Live in the Now

Just BE InspiredBy TS Crawford October 20, 2017

There was a great tragedy in my family the other day. It came suddenly, while I was sitting at the kitchen table and my kids were playing outside. The idyllic quiet of early evening in the country was jarringly broken by my daughter’s hysterical scream.

I jumped up and, heroically abandoning the Facebook post I was working on, ran outside to save the day. But I was too late.

As I followed my son’s finger pointing up high into the darkening azure sky, I saw a faint speck growing smaller and smaller, and I understood my daughter’s pain.

Her balloon, Balloony as she so creatively named it, was making a frenetic escape to the stratosphere.

The Most Important Parenting Advice: Always Have Snacks

Just BE FunnyBy TS Crawford October 4, 2017

Basically, if you’re the parent of a baby or small child, you’re used to strangers passing out unsolicited advice. So here goes: always have snacks ready, be prepared to lose your shit every once in a while, don’t buy any nice furniture, and know that you may never feel like you know what you’re doing. I promise you, most of us feel the same way.

Rule of the Children

Just BE FunnyBy TS Crawford September 14, 2017

A groundbreaking new study has recently been published which outlines proof of something many children have long suspected but had until now been unable to prove. After years of collecting and compiling data and case studies, the scientific team at Studies-R-Us has determined as children age, their parents do, in fact, get dumber.

“I’ve been rolling my eyes harder and harder for the last several years now, but, like, they just don’t get it”, 14-year-old Cassandra Swinson said in a statement, continuing with several follow-up remarks explaining the complete lack of understanding about even the simplest concept which her parents seemed to be displaying.

Not Yet

Just BE InspiredBy TS Crawford August 21, 2017

All parents can hope for is to have the opportunity to watch their children grow away from them, to sprout strong legs of independence that will lead them on their own journey.
They must face hardships, they must fight their own battles, they must conquer their own demons.

Just not yet.