05_2AThat’s what we did this past weekend — literally, we had a ball.  Aptly named the, “Sky Ball,” this round sphere of blue practically disappears into the sky after being thrown as hard as possible onto the pavement.  It was one of our 10-year-old son’s favorite birthday gifts a couple of weeks ago.  One of those, “We  HAVE to play with this right now” kind of presents.

The game on Saturday started intimately enough, just our son, daughter and myself taking to the street in front of our house (conveniently we live on a court so traffic is very minimal) and bouncing the Sky Ball back and forth between us as hard as we could.  We had wanted to get out of the house and take advantage of the beautiful Indian Summer day.  My kids’ science teacher emailed me that, “A true Indian Summer occurs when temperatures warm above average during the 7th to 14th of November.”  I didn’t know that prior to his Monday email but certainly enjoyed the fact on Saturday!

As adults, we often fail to appreciate this traditional child’s toy — the ball.  In this instance, the Sky Ball.  With its tremendous bouncing ability, this simple toy really got us moving (if only I had thought to strap on my pedometer!).  The bounce potential makes it difficult to predict where the translucent sphere will wind up, so we were often sent running after it across lawns full of downed leaves and driveways marked with colorful sidewalk chalk images.

The unintended workout was fantastic.  The parent versus kid interaction, priceless.  And within a short time, as more and more of the neighborhoods’ young came running out to join us, the sites and sounds of what felt like a summer day in November…unforgettable.

The 10 day weather forcast predicts above normal temperatures through the week.  Try having a ball on your block.