{"id":1503,"date":"2012-07-11T19:06:06","date_gmt":"2012-07-11T23:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/?p=1503"},"modified":"2012-07-11T16:23:04","modified_gmt":"2012-07-11T20:23:04","slug":"everyone-likes-to-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/07\/everyone-likes-to-play.html","title":{"rendered":"Everyone Likes to Play"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During a recent visit to the Toledo Zoo, I had the rare opportunity to watch both the elephants and the giraffes at play. The most recent baby elephant, Louie, was having quite a time throwing hay at his mother.\u00a0 Then he would run up and bump her on the behind.\u00a0 They played back and forth for quite a while and &#8220;Mommy&#8221; didn&#8217;t get cross or mad at little Louie.\u00a0 It was great fun to see them together.<a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/259\/2012\/07\/IMG_0877.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1523\" title=\"IMG_0877\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/259\/2012\/07\/IMG_0877.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"308\" height=\"274\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When we moved on to the giraffe display in the zoo&#8217;s African Savanna, we got to see another Mommy and baby interact with each other.\u00a0 This little guy was playing &#8220;nip the butt&#8221; with his mommy.\u00a0 He would nip her on the behind, then run to the other side of the savanna.\u00a0 Soon he would come almost skipping around his mommy and nip her again.\u00a0 Mommy was quite good natured about the whole thing and didn&#8217;t seem to mind a bit as they continued their little game.<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/files\/2012\/07\/IMG_0866.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-1524\" title=\"IMG_0866\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/259\/2012\/07\/IMG_0866-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I think some people parents can take a lesson from these wild creatures.\u00a0 We take life so seriously and even fight over a child&#8217;e baseball or soccer game.\u00a0 We think play aways has to be structured and we ALWAYS have to win.\u00a0 I had three small children in sports and my husband coached both baseball and kickball, so I have seem both sides of this story.<\/p>\n<p>Games don&#8217;t have to be structured to be fun.\u00a0 My grand-daughter and her family count VWs and PT Cruiser&#8217;s when they travel.\u00a0 It&#8217;s lots of fun and nobody really cares who wins the game.\u00a0 We used to give our kids big cardboard boxes and let them play in the back yard.\u00a0 They would create the most unusual things; everything from rocket ships to fancy house with lace curtains.\u00a0 What fun we had and no structure, no rules.<\/p>\n<p>Life is too complicated.\u00a0 Sometimes we just need to laugh and skip or roll in the grass.\u00a0 We all will grow old soon enough, so let&#8217;s enjoy the &#8220;kid&#8221; in us and have some fun.\u00a0 I think it might even make Jesus smile a bit.\u00a0 I&#8217;m sure He played in the sand with the children of His day and quite enjoyed it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During a recent visit to the Toledo Zoo, I had the rare opportunity to watch both the elephants and the giraffes at play. The most recent baby elephant, Louie, was having quite a time throwing hay at his mother.\u00a0 Then he would run up and bump her on the behind.\u00a0 They played back and forth&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":420,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,30],"tags":[25,42,29],"class_list":["post-1503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just-for-fun","category-memories","tag-children","tag-choices","tag-family"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Everyone Likes to Play - Small Town America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/07\/everyone-likes-to-play.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Everyone Likes to Play - Small Town America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"During a recent visit to the Toledo Zoo, I had the rare opportunity to watch both the elephants and the giraffes at play. The most recent baby elephant, Louie, was having quite a time throwing hay at his mother.\u00a0 Then he would run up and bump her on the behind.\u00a0 They played back and forth&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/07\/everyone-likes-to-play.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Small Town America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-07-11T23:06:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-07-11T20:23:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/files\/2012\/07\/IMG_0877.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dhanny\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Everyone Likes to Play - Small Town America","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/07\/everyone-likes-to-play.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Everyone Likes to Play - Small Town America","og_description":"During a recent visit to the Toledo Zoo, I had the rare opportunity to watch both the elephants and the giraffes at play. The most recent baby elephant, Louie, was having quite a time throwing hay at his mother.\u00a0 Then he would run up and bump her on the behind.\u00a0 They played back and forth&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/07\/everyone-likes-to-play.html","og_site_name":"Small Town America","article_published_time":"2012-07-11T23:06:06+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-07-11T20:23:04+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/files\/2012\/07\/IMG_0877.jpg"}],"author":"dhanny","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/07\/everyone-likes-to-play.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/07\/everyone-likes-to-play.html","name":"Everyone Likes to Play - Small Town America","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/07\/everyone-likes-to-play.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/07\/everyone-likes-to-play.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/files\/2012\/07\/IMG_0877.jpg","datePublished":"2012-07-11T23:06:06+00:00","dateModified":"2012-07-11T20:23:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/#\/schema\/person\/8903397417d1ce94982f0403797aedbe"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/07\/everyone-likes-to-play.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/07\/everyone-likes-to-play.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/07\/everyone-likes-to-play.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/files\/2012\/07\/IMG_0877.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/files\/2012\/07\/IMG_0877.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/07\/everyone-likes-to-play.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Everyone Likes to Play"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/","name":"Small Town America","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Diane Hanny","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/#\/schema\/person\/8903397417d1ce94982f0403797aedbe","name":"dhanny","description":"john3:16","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/author\/dhanny"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/420"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1503"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1507,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503\/revisions\/1507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}