Why Do We Explore?
We explore because it’s fun. Period.
Ever since I was little, my parents and I were constantly outside. When I was an infant we’d go swimming at a local lake, we’d go pick up golf balls when the golf course across the street closed and I’d sit on top of my dad’s shoulders in a hiking backpack, we’d spend a week in Cape Cod every year, I’d run around outside with our neighbors building forts, playing manhunt, and more. What’s always stuck with me is that whenever we were outside, it was always fun.
There was always a memory being made.
When I had my son a month before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and shattered our world as we knew it, we hardly went outside. I didn’t know how much this would affect me until a few months into quarantining at home with my first child while recovering from an emergency c-section. All I wanted to do was go outside, but we couldn’t. At the time we lived on a really busy road on the edge of a small town. Directly behind our house was train tracks and on the other side of our home was an always congested road. The only place to walk was on a paved nature trail but we were too nervous being around people with a newborn due to Covid. It was just safer to stay inside to us.
But within ten months of my son being here, we moved to a great house on a quiet cal-de-sac. We had more birds, we had a big driveway to walk around in, a safe yard with a swing set, and a road that we could walk on with our stroller and not be worried about cars and unwanted interactions. We could be outside! Finally! As my son grew older it was amazing to watch him want to sit in the grass, point towards animals, watch ants crawl by on the pavement and more.
All of this made me realize how important it is to teach our kids about just plain simple: go outside.
Experience nature. Experience fresh air. I know we’re lucky to be able to do so as some people are unable to go to a park, or have a backyard, etc but I want to show my son and others how amazing nature can be. How comforting it can be. Even if you don’t have access to immediate nature, you can read about it. Is it raining outside? Let’s read. Is it snowing, but you want to learn about Turtles on islands? Let’s read.
That’s why we started Leaf Explorers.