Make Tracks Family Trail Weekend

Remember my recent post about playing with kids in the great outdoors? Yeah, I don't blame you. I think it was called something like Take a Child Outside Week. It's not quite a national holiday -- at least not yet. (And Take Your Dog to Work Day is getting closer and closer to that status.)

Well, there's yet another outdoorsy, kid-friendly event this weekend called Make Tracks Family Trail Weekend, or MTFTW. Catchy, huh? It's a push by the National Wildlife Federation to get families out appreciating nature. All they want is for people to sign up and say they are going to take their family down a trail. They don't offer you money or prizes or even a T-shirt or anything, so I guess the reward is just feeling proud for having gone.

These programs are trying to combat nature-deficit disorder, a term used to describe how kids are growing up disconnected from the natural world. Spending time in a natural setting not only helps kids develop a love of the environment, but it also supposedly helps kids develop imagination and eases stress and symptoms of ADD. Having free-play time outside allegedly prevents obesity. And it makes your teeth whiter and your hair shinier, and you never have to worry about fuzz in your belly button.

My breast cancer walk (there's still time to donate! just $5!) is on Saturday, so I hope my husband and I can take our son to a nearby refuge on Sunday. After surrounding the Man-cub with lots of green and brown outside, I'll be looking for signs of imagination and lack of stress. Oh, wait -- he's only two! He has imagination in spades! And no stress whatsoever. Well, going down a trail has to be good for something. Like, oh please, maybe a really long nap.