A Trampoline

Fortunately, I integer overflowed my mom’s level of worry and she was too glad to have me back to be angry. Though, seeing her unwind from genuine terror was more effective than any level of scolding and I never again forgot to tell them where I was going.

Trampolines, man.

If I were to follow this, I'd be spending half my days driving to stores to buy the thing my kids happen to "desperately" want today :)

Also a reminder that you're not obliged to _buy_ everything. Its kind of amazing how ingrained this is into a large amount of peoples' heads. You can get a lot of things for free or secondhand. I got my kids' large trampoline for free.

He loved it and many years later he still uses it, pretty much every day that it's not raining. He's well past the age where I would have thought he would still be interested. We've replaced the mat and all the springs to keep it going.

Point being, sometimes you just don't know what kids will like.

I find it very relaxing it helps me de-stress and think about things deeper than I would sitting in front of a computer.

10 years later, it’s still out there, netting ripped, legs all rusty, plastic getting brittle. And my 16 year old son still loves to bounce around on it with his 9 year old brother.

As much as I like them, nothing is worth that kinda risk.

We only had one because my parents were extremely irresponsible people. (In other ways too)

Next I bought a nice trampoline for the kids and the second it showed up at my door my dad commented that he thinks it was a waste of my money and that the kids don't even use the pool and the same would be true for the trampoline.

Well he has since apologized many times over after realizing my kids would put about 6 hours a day on the thing in the summer and even on some of the less then optimal weather days put in some time. My dad now keeps talking about the cost per hour the trampoline has gotten ($500 trampoline - 500 hours use = 1$/hr), well now I think he calculates it by the cents per hour no longer dollars.

Of course I had the financial means, which my mother did not. And so I was raised playing with typing paper and a few office supplies that she could "bring home" from work (as a secretary).

In the end it's hard for me to know if perhaps that wouldn't have been the better strategy: let kids learn to be creative with the most meager of playthings.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trampoline

One of my favorite trampoline hacks is to rip the legs off and use them as a giant tree swing, or portaledge when tree climbing.

The hoop is immensely lightweight, strong, and doesn't care if it's being supported by legs in compression, or by lines in (equal) tension. They break down and transport super easy.

But don't jump.

I didn't want a trampoline either and later realised that it was the best investment of my life. Do not buy the play-frame though - that's a waste of money.

but then i read the article and it's about things we believe would be great to have until we have them and they're so costly and big that we keep them...

maybe it was really the nth metaphor for LLMs after all

Because you cannot just mind and recklessly jump on it - you have a generic flat/bouncy ground to do all kinds of soft movements, you can do slow or fast. So recovering I did not by jumping yet, but by roling and softly bouncing up and down. First while lying, then standing ... then finally jumping again.

Now many years later, I bought a second, connected them and can do longer jumps and tricks between them.

Oh yes, and the children now love it since they could crawl in it. (Except with strong sun, my older boy is strongly afraid of the static electricity that builds up, that can result in discharges strong enough to hurt, which my daughter uses intentionally to shock him).

Of course it helps, that the Trampolin is hidden from view, not sure if I would have as much fun it it, if everybody from the street could watch. If you have that, or don't care, - go wild in it. Extremely rewarding sport for me. I never hurt myself in it, but that can of course happen, if you overdo it, but compared to the accidents I had in all those other sports that not happen on a soft ground ...

Even the mini ones (rebounders) but in a different way

Then suddenly she realised what it was.

"It's a bounce-a-trine" she announced. It rather stuck with the family, that one did.