We Jump, We Play, We Imagine by Lisa Weightman

Guest Blog by Lisa Weightman

How is everyone coping? It’s been a rollercoaster for just about every human on the planet. A rollercoaster that just keeps rolling. We’ve made so much progress over the last 8 weeks to keep our COVID numbers down. However, we learned this afternoon that upon relaxing restrictions our cases in Victoria are rising and further restrictions have been put in place to ensure we can take care of each other. So, what do we now? 

We do the only thing we can do, take care of our little ones and our big ones. We eat healthy, stay positive and keep running, jumping, inventing, colouring and making memories. When all this is over, we will reminisce only about our bunny picnics, how we watched ET and made our own jetpacks bouncing into the universe to find ET and his family and how we took care of each other throughout it all.

We have one more week here until school holidays resume. No play dates, no family gatherings and lots of home fun and games are back on the agenda. I’m all prepped with weather and space creative boxes ready to blast off, warm blankets, fluffy socks and popcorn for trampoline picnics and some ideas on how we can turn our rocky pump house in the backyard into an enchanted fairy garden for Peter.

We were fortunate to welcome a Springfree Medium Oval Trampoline into our home in January this year. When it arrived and the lovely Peter (we have a lot of Peter’s in our lives!) installed it we were hooked! I immediately googled ideas on games we could play on the trampoline. We grabbed our special fire hydrant shaped sprinkler, placed it under the trampoline and set up a water obstacle course under, over and around the trampoline! Don’t forget your sun hat! 

We combined the water obstacle course with the much-loved game “Floor is Lava”. Only this time the only safe haven is the trampoline itself and you have to jump, jump, jump or even the trampoline mat will turn to lava! Boy did we laugh! 

As the weather turned in Melbourne to crisp autumn days and home schooling started we put away the sprinkler and pulled out the Tgoma, part of the Springfree Mega and Smart Accessory Bundles. We took turns in chasing those crazy little aliens, recorded Pete’s jumps, recoding his jumps alongside all his jumping beans friends around the globe and we taught Pete a little maths with “Math Hopper”. Home schooling a Prep boy requires an imagination and a lot of active breaks throughout the day!     

When face to face school resumed so did winter weather – brrr and with hibernation mode on the horizon I found myself looking for new inspiration. But we’ve been pleasantly surprised so far. It’s the end of June and we’ve been blessed with sunny afternoons. We’ve put on our fluffy grip socks, grabbed a pouch of hot wheels cars and set up demolition derby and car crash carnival!  It’s never too cold for a trampoline when you have fluffy socks and a huge imagination. 

In saving the best for last of course and Pete’s ultimate favourite – you must try it either on or off the trampoline! We turned the trampoline into a teddy bear’s picnic – a bunny picnic actually as his three favourites are grey, blue and brown bunny! Our bunny picnic was full of cuddles, treat food and we even had pass-the-parcel. Pete won of course as bunnies cannot open parcels! 

My heart goes out to all of you as you navigate the best way forward with your big ones and your little ones. I hope you are finding ways to be creative, ways to cherish time together and ways to make long lasting and positive memories for your resilient little humans. It isn’t easy, but we are truly in this together. I would love to hear the games you have been playing during these crazy times. Please reach out via @lisaweightman and share yours with our family. The more we look out for each other, the better chance we have of beating this thing!

Lots of love, Lisa. x