“Tell me a story when you were little.”

My daughter asks this of me all the time. “Tell me a story when you were little.” Hidden in that request is the desire to know me, to see how I lived, and to be included in my world. It’s a great request and I try to reach way back and tell her of the time I learned to tie my shoes or rode my Big Wheel down the driveway.

In the dozens of times I’ve been asked to tell a story from my childhood, I have never said anything about watching TV. Not that I didn’t watch TV. I can sing the opening to Saved By the Bell right now, if you want to hear it.

What I see, though, is that my best memories came from being outside and playing and interacting with people and going places and doing things – not from being on the couch.

How cool would it be to fill my kids’ memories with so much fun stuff that they a) have no doubt about my love for them b) continue to believe that we have the best family ever (as I tell them often) and c) don’t have to think long and hard when their children ask them, “Tell me a story when you were little.”