This post was written by Natassja - Kayleigh's closest in age sister and the one person that spent most of their time with Kayleigh. Kayleigh was only 11 months old when Natassja was born so they grew up together, had the same friends and played together.
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When Kayleigh and I were younger we both had very large imaginations and created games - some strange, others really really strange
The least strange one was '
kraken'.
When Kayleigh, Alexandra, Tayla and I were in junior primary school every lunch and recess we would pretend we were pirates and the playground our ship the tanbark underneath was the ocean and lurking in the waters was a kraken and it would pull us down to drown us and someone would have to jump in and rescue the captive crew member but in order to get to the person in time we had to travel from the deck all the way to an opening in the base of the ship (the deck is nearby the slide, the base by the monkey bars was where the opening) once we were all safe one would go to look out for the kraken by hanging off the side of the playground. Places kraken would attack
Steps, near the monkey bars, bottom of the slide, any where that was close to the ground.
ANIMAL GAMES
Tortoise Run
Tortoise Run was a game we created because our room was clean and for some reason the mattress was on the floor and so we stood it up vertically to make room and it fell on us and that created a game where we stood up the mattress and would crawl slowly away from it pretending we are tortoises and the falling mattress the jaws of a crocodile.
Boing Boing and lion
(For everyone's information a boing boing is a gazelle) boing boing and lion formally known as boing boing was created after we watched a bit of a documentary about animals and it showed a gazelle being chased by a cheetah and then he got the gazelle, this game usually played with three included to people bouncing on all fours being a gazelle and someone being a lion (because lions are much cooler than cheetahs at that age) the 'lion' has to chase the gazelle 's and eat them and I mean bite. The bed was the lions territory and the carpet is the fields of grass, any ' gazelle' who went close to the bed would be a target.
SPY GAMES
Secret agents
Kayleigh and I, and sometimes terry, after our bed time we would sneak into the backyard via the laundry door and our mission to get around the garden without being spotted by mum or dad.
First stay close to the wall and get to the clothes line area
Second scuttle along the ground staying lower than the level of concrete
Thirdly make a run for it and get down to the bottom corner of the garden (one of the tricky parts)
Then go one tree at a time checking the back window for any parents at each one
Next once reached the silk tree run as fast as you can to the apple tree
Hardest part stay low to the retaining wall till you get to precisely in front of the laundry door then bolt and hope you don't get caught to the laundry door.
Spys
We are spy's and have our own bases and we have to plan to shoot the other team we would have our own code names and '
'guns' (golf clubs) and the team left standing wins
CARDBOARD BOX GAMES
Every kid loves cardboard boxes (who doesn't), especially the big ones that you get from washing machines and fridges. In which all of these used
Jump in the box
the name basically gives it away - we basically have the box vertically cover the bottom of the box with pillows climb on top of the bunk bed and jump in then rock the box till it falls over and you climb out, and lift it up for the next person.
Earthquake
Same as above only people shake the box violently until they tip it one way too far and they can no longer hold it and it falls and hurts the person inside.
Rollercoaster
This time it's horizontal and everyone except one person crams inside the box the other shuts the opening and starts lifting, rolling and tumbling the box in all directions until they run out if energy.
No name
The box is a cave, tent or a house in which we live in.
BED GAMES
Cat and mouse
When we are meant to be asleep we would pull our doonas out of our covers and our top sheets of our beds created many levels we would put one on top of the other and they would be levels one of us was the cat the other a mouse. The mouse runs the cats chases, we would have to be on the same level to be able to catch the mouse the game ends when one becomes tired or mum and dad have a go at us for us being awake at a ridiculous time.
Cubbies
Our beds had a mesh thing underneath and we would go on the bottom bunk and rap our doonas around them in a shape and that would be our cubby another type we would tuck the doona under the mattress of the top bunk and allow it to hang down over the bottom blocking all light from there.
The gap
There was a gap between the wall and our bed big enough to fit both of us down at the same time this could be used as a secret passage way to each others bed or...
A place to do flips we would hang upside down in the gap hold onto the frame and flip down or just hang until the blood rushes to your head while the other tickles you until you fall, I was terrible at this and fell at one touch.
WATER GAMES
Water tips
On really hot days we would be allowed to water the lawn and a way to cool down was to use the hose and get wet. One person would run after us with the hose and squirt us with water if it hit us we were in and behind the trees at the bottom of the garden was safe.
Another version the one who didn't wont to get wet wet everyone but the whole chasing thing was still part of it
Water snake
Whilst watering the lawn we would hold and three meters away from the head or put it on the ground and of course it would go crazy everywhere and get everything wet including us.
What dad does...(literally that's what we referred it as)
Dad puts stuff on the hose to stop it from moving and he would turn on the hose to be a stream of water and we would run through trying not to get wet as possible but of course we would end up soaked.
