Maya’s at an overnight tonight with her friend Marcella.  I have no doubt they are on the Wii right now, fighting their way through bad guys as Indiana Jones, or dancing to Just Dance II.   This will be followed by an attempt to stay up all night, which in the past has lasted as late as 2:30am.   Maya prepared herself this time with things to keep them occupied, so we’ll see.

With an evening of me all to himself, Ben had a list of things we ‘needed’ to do.  First we went to the small stationary and toy store on 72nd St., where we bought several packs of Gogo’s Crazy Bones.  (not going to explain them here, but you can Google it)   I got three and he got three and when we got home we did some trading.   Actually I prefer the stickers to the figurines – I’m decorating my Mac with them.

After the toy store, where Ben was disappointed that they did not have Hexbugs, which are a small robot-like toy, he remembered that he’d seen them before at Radio Shack.  So off we went.   And they had them.  And he bought one.  With his money.  (He bought the gogo’s as well).    Then Starbucks for coffee and hot chocolate.   Then home.

We traded gogo’s, ordered out pizza, built mazes for his Hexbug, sang some Wii Karaoke, watched two episodes of Primeval (on Netflix streaming onto our TV through the Wii!), sang a little more and then got Ben ready for bed.

And in between our play, we talked about stuff.   Ben asked about Karen (my English friend I’ve mentioned before) and so I updated him on that situation.  We talked about Premiere League soccer, and whether or not centipedes can bite, and what eyelids do and why some people can sing well and others can’t.  Egypt was mentioned at one point when he saw the cover of the Times, and he said he felt bad for the people there who just want to live their lives and not be involved in the protests.

See, play doesn’t happen in a vacuum.   We play and talk, and learn from both.  I read the paper while Ben builds and he comments on something he sees on the page.   There is a constant flow of information about all manner of things, both global and trivial but equally important.    Maya said earlier today that she is surprised at how little some of her friends know about what she considers every day things, even though they may ‘know more math’ than she does.  (her words, not mine).

Play, learn, live, learn.  Learn and learn some more.   It can’t be stopped, or separated from life.   This is what we mean when we say the world is our classroom.