Life in coastal Carolina is paralyzing this summer. Temps ranged from 79 at 6:30 AM to 103 degrees at 1:30 most of last week. So, we travel wherever the sun is not…early mornings later in the evenings as well. We seek ways to entertain ourselves indoors.

I think of the many moms and dads, daycare providers and the camp counselors, who at this point, I’m sure, are tired of shifting gears, piecing it together. Trying to keep kids entertained.

It’s the doldrum phase. Nothing to do and nowhere to go, there’s the screen coma, the videogames and the endless stream of texts and influences of all different kinds on the internet. I remember this phase as a parent only too well. But then I thought about my next-door neighbor, a pro at everything she tackled, she had her kids well occupied, well through the end of the summer. How on earth did she do this?

Our street, at one time, was an old apple farm. The house next door, her house, was the original farmer’s home with three floors, a front and back staircase and a barn! It was a great place for hide and seek, for board games, it even had a hill for sledding and a pond below that. It was paradise, most of the time.

At one point, the five original kids (there ended up being 11 in all!) were gifted a tv set. Now, both Mr. and Mrs. were brilliant, creative people. But those kids were growing super attached to that set. So, when day after day in summer, she found their eyes glazed in front of the tv set, all the while ignoring her, she didn’t overreact. She thought it through with her husband and then decided to get rid of the tv!

I can’t even imagine that now!

Back then, I was the 17-year-old babysitter called upon to babysit this brood. How do you babysit for a tribe of kids without a tv set? I brought books and my guitar, which I was terrible at, trying to be all Michelle Phillips from the Mamas and Papas! Not even close. I brought crayons and paper and drawing utensils, but then I brought the best stories I could conjure up in my head. And it was that, so simple, those stories, that worked.

The kids entered into my stories, imagining and reimagining, making up their own parts. They added details and stood alongside me, helping me along in the telling! We even had props. Story engulfed and entertained us that summer.

Recently, I crossed paths with a pair of young moms parading through a wooded boardwalk near my home. Between them, they had 8 kids racing ahead and trailing behind, ranging in age from six months to eleven years. They were a merry bunch; stopping to pet my dog and ask me all kinds of questions about me and about my dog. One of the boys told me, “We’re doing Shakespeare in the park!”

A few weeks later, I got an invite to their merry performance of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, ironically staged and performed midsummer. It was magical! They’d spent the entire summer practicing, building the set, coming up with costume ideas and rehearsing. It was so simple, yet so engaging. And yes, there was a feast!

Story is simple. It’s about heroes and villains and problems and solutions. A main character faces the hardest thing in their life and then learns a lesson or finds a way out. Like Danny on Ted Lasso, who claims ‘football is life!’, for me, it’s story. Whether it’s retelling the moments of our lives to one another or recreating a drama or conjuring one up in thin air, stories are the entertaining force that can fire up those doldrums, an escape, and a momentary delight!

And yes, that merry band definitely did old Shakespeare proud!

I’d love to hear how you’re entertaining yourself and your little and not so little ones are entertaining each other this summer. Please subscribe here and follow me at https://facebook.com/gaellynchwriter!