Conveyor Belt

This is a story about how all ropes are not made equal.   We had our friends come visit some weeks back—the friends we’re going on a sailing trip with this summer.   We were going to have rope knot lessons when they were here.  I prepared by getting us some rope from REI that I cut into ten-foot lengths, melting the ends so that they didn’t fray.

We had lots of fun both before and after they were here with the rope tying.   We played with ropes, they were all over the house and out in the yard and most notably all knotted up over my daughter.   She loved tying “harnesses” out of them and then hoisting herself up into the tree in the front yard.

The other day I was taking the dog on out and about to get her accustomed to different environments and as we wandered up and down the aisles at Lowes I noticed bundles of 100’ ropes in various widths.   They looked similar to the much more expensive ropes I’d gotten at REI and I thought I’d get one of them for my daughter.   If she could have fun with ten foot lengths of rope, what mischief could she get into with a full hundred feet?

We unbundled the rope the next day and I discovered why the price point was so attractive.   The rope had been tightly bound and it was losing internal structure from the long period it had remained in the one position.   I couldn’t get it straight and bits of the center parts stuck out the sides here and there.  

I didn’t know what to do with it until the next day when conversations about zip lines and the deck came up again.   I told Keira and my daughter I had an idea.   I sent my daughter to find a bucket and Keira down to the play set.   Ten minutes later we had a loop of rope from the top of the deck railing to the cross bar above the slide in the play house.    We tied a bucket on and I told them I’d be sending something over shortly.

My daughter wanted to know if it would involve Easter eggs?  I told her maybe and then ran to the attic to get some plastic Easter eggs from the year before.   Candy was inserted into the eggs and then the eggs into the bucket and we started hoisting.   My daughter was just short of ecstatic.

We sent things back and forth several more times before everyone had to go in.   My daughter, alone in the play house asked for one more thing and I surprised her with a popsicle.   She really (and I mean really) likes the conveyor belt.   Today after school she got her friends involved and they started sending things back and forth.   I had to go to a board meeting so I missed what happened, but I think they were occupied for a good while, moving things from the deck, which has no access other than the door from our breakfast room, to the play house above the slide.

They connected the remaining rope in another way over to another tree.  I don’t know what that rope was for, but it doesn’t really matter.   The important thing is ropes are fun when you’re a child.

The Big Boy Update:  My son told me in the car after school, “I like brown people the best.”   He has been studying different cultures in school recently.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:    My daughter has music lesson every Monday.   It’s really Music Therapy, but honestly, we just want her to have a good time and learn about music in a way that’s meaningful to her.   Her friend, Madison, loves to join in the lesson with her and Chelsea, her teacher usually doesn’t mind.   They’re learning how to play songs on the piano most recently.   And then they run around and sing and dance.   It’s very loud in the house during music lessons here.