Sailing in every Thursday for encouragement and support in the Caregiving realm.
The speaker opens the cadre, gives her name Speak Wonder, and briefly describes her love of language and birds. This orients viewers to her role and tone for the talk.
She explains that she cares for her mother and her grandchildren and emphasizes how the kids influence her caregiving perspective. This establishes the personal context for the talk about playfulness.
Using a trip to 'Giant Eagle' as an example, she illustrates how children interpret language literally and how that sparks playful interaction. Viewers can expect a lighthearted example of how kids restore wonder.
She recounts a spontaneous moment at an eye appointment and a request for a dentist that led to shared laughter with staff. These anecdotes show how spontaneity and humor create connection and joy.
The speaker names playfulness as necessary and spontaneous in caregiving and introduces the idea of its lasting legacy. This section frames the upcoming discussion of why play matters across generations.
She describes her 95-year-old mother's playful one-liners and recalls moments that show play passed through the family, including a detailed leaves-and-granddaughter anecdote. This illustrates how a playful legacy shapes family interactions and responses.
She outlines three prongs—necessity, spontaneity, and legacy—and explains how playfulness uplifts mood, diffuses fear, and fosters connection. This succinctly summarizes why cultivating play is valuable for caregivers and others.
The speaker thanks viewers, mentions her corgi and upcoming appearances, and emphasizes that caregiving and play are both important. The closing offers encouragement and a direct call to value both care and play in everyday life.
It's a cadre. In the cadre, I am your harbor pilot and my name is Speak Wonder because I love to take birds, birds, I just saw birds outside my window, which I also love. I love to take words, bend them, mold them into poetry, essays, encouragement over your head. True North is here. In the picture of caregiving, I'm going to switch gears a little bit today while I often concentrate on my mom, June, known at the nursing home as June Bug, is the person to whom I give most of my care in the caregiving realm, but also I take care of my grandchildren.
Every Friday I get to watch them. for the whole day. I have a five-year-old granddaughter, Tilly, and a two-year-old grandson, Ollie, and those two keep me on my toes. Those two have taught me the importance of play, dare I say the necessity of play in caregiving. It's so important that we play. It's so good for our soul to have a playful spirit and to hang on to that childlike wonder. And when you spend time with little kids, you retrieve some of that wonder just by being in proximity to them, their questions, their innocence, their take on the world, the way they see things as black and white.
Everything is quite literal. When we say things as grownups, we're nuanced. Okay, here's a good example. I told my granddaughter we were going to go grocery shopping at Giant Eagle, which is a grocery store chain here back east where I'm from in northwestern Pennsylvania, right on Lake Erie. And she said, Giant Eagle? Will there be a giant eagle? Is there an eagle? And she became very excited thinking of the prospect of seeing an eagle, not just an eagle, but a giant one. Well, I know as a grownup, that's the name of a grocery store chain.
So having her childlike take on things is really good and it allows me to be playful. Being playful is also spontaneous. And today I went to get my glasses checked. I need a new prescription, a little bit stronger, quite nearsighted. And then one of the technicians helped me select a pair of frames, which will be in a couple of weeks. While she was busy doing paperwork, I did a quick maneuver. Talk about spontaneity. I think they're upside down. Just a minute. These are cheap. These are a $2 purchase.
And I said, could you recommend a dentist? Could you recommend a dentist, please? The laughter. that peeled through that office was priceless. It was early this morning, so I was one of their first patients. And I think the staff were not quite awake. And when they saw my teeth, my hillbilly teeth, spontaneity, playfulness, laughter, it just jiggles out what we need. And laughter, it can't be programmed and yet it can. It can't be orchestrated and yet it can. Sometimes we can plan laughable moments and when we plan them, sometimes they go great and sometimes they go sideways and even that becomes a laughing matter in due time.
The spontaneity of laughter. So the necessity of play, the spontaneity of play. And finally, today, in my very short cadre presentation, I'd like to talk about the legacy of play. I inherited a legacy of playfulness from my mom. She's 95 years old and she's still terribly funny. And she still surprises me and my siblings with her very well-placed one-liners. She will be involved in a conversation and then just put a zinger out there. And it's funny and it's appropriate and it's memorable. And so by example, throughout the years that she raised us and then has interacted with us as adult kids, one of her legacies is laughter and playfulness, a playful spirit.
It's always been part of our family and I think that is innate and it's also learned. The ability to be playful is demonstrated and learned and carried into our families generationally. And it's just a natural ingredient in the caregiving picture as well. The legacy of laughter. And I like to think that as I'm emerging as a matriarch, of the family and grandma, which my name is the German Omar, to my grands. I hope and I pray that part of my legacy is playfulness. Yesterday, for instance, my granddaughter was finished with preschool and I said that I would pick her up.
So I do get to interact with him throughout the week. And I picked her up from preschool and immediately being a kid, being a five-year-old, being totally absorbed by her surroundings, never on task, like we structured grownups become. She's looking around the pretty blue sky, the gorgeous fall leaves, which we're enjoying now. And there was a pile of them because the maintenance guy at the school had piled them up. So what do you do with a pile of leaves? Usually you jump in them. Not this girl, She took as many leaves as her arms could hold and she went.
And as she did that, I'm standing right next to her. They went, these very dry brittle leaves went in my hair. I just came in from feeding the birds. That's why I've got the little hat on. It went down the back. It went inside my clothing. Yeah, it went there. It went everywhere. everywhere and the trunk of my car was opened. So it went in the trunk of my car and I had leaves everywhere. Leaves literally everywhere. I will confess my initial gut punch response was annoyed. A little bit indignant because I had just vacuumed the car.
Okay, who vacuums the car before they're going to pick up a little kid? That's just silly because they're going to trash it. Anyway, That was my inside initial response. It never came out, thankfully, because in that moment I recognized, I recognized not all moments are like this where we get to think about how am I going to respond, but I recognized that I could respond with joy and a fun spirit instead of being upset because who cares? Vacuum the car later. Vacuum it again. She's having a moment with the leaves in the autumn before the snow flies.
The leaves are dry and crunchy and oh so delightful. And as she threw them up in the air and I'm standing there, it was almost like slow-mo. As I understood, I was drenched in leaves now and they were scratchy and scratchy underneath my clothing and everywhere. She was looking at me and I could tell that Tilly wanted to know she was in trouble. So something must have flashed across my face briefly. And then I said, wee! And I picked up some leaves and I threw them on her. And they went in her hair and she giggled and I giggled.
And eventually we got in the car and we went on with life. And we went to the library and then the playground and then to her ballet class. I'm so thankful that I checked myself because I don't always As humans, we respond, things happen, we react. But with playfulness in the forefront, that can be our go-to. And it's not only necessary for you to buoy your spirit, get you through the day, it's also excellent for spontaneity. Just to put a one-liner in the world, even with strangers. I make friends with people who are pure strangers because of humor.
It's just a wonderful catalyst for conversations. And the third prong of playfulness, first one is the necessity of it. The second one is the spontaneity of it. And the third one is the legacy of it, the legacy of your playful attitude and demeanor. will be carried in to those around you in a positive way. It can diffuse scary moments. It can mitigate fear. Playfulness has just so many layers to it. It's so genuine. Those are the things I wanted to mention about having an attitude of playfulness.
I leave you with that. And I thank you for the encouragement that comes my way whenever I come into the Codrosphere as a consumer. I will be with you again and so will my very vocal corgi, her name is Gracie, with you again next week on Thursday. I so look forward to our times together. And thank you so much, whether you're here live or on the replay. I see Randy's in the house. Yeah. I just so appreciate being able to interact and the freedom that the cadre leadership gives me to speak from my heart and say what's on my mind.
And that's what's on my mind is the wonder, the necessity, the spontaneity, and the legacy of playfulness. I say bye for now, and I thank you for being a beautiful human being. I thank you for walking alongside someone to the degree that you open a door, make a phone call, join the cadre, write a letter, make a meal, deliver humor. To whatever degree you're interacting with other humans, you are a caregiver. Your work is important and so is your play. And you're pretty amazing. Be my friend. I'll see you next week.
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