Playground Warriers

I was standing in the middle of yesterday's new playground adventure and as I looked around at the dozen or so other parents with their kids I realized I was no longer in babyville. Granted my two were by far the tiniest there but still, I had KIDS now and other kids saw that and made me talk to them and answer questions. Other adults saw that and wanted to compare notes and make small talk. It was kind of cool and icky all at the same time! I'm not sure I'm ready for this but it doesn't matter because Rasa and Adia are and they love nothing more than to play with the big kids (or at least watch them and try to imitate them) at playgrounds.

Royce and I, well more me, have been scouting out new playgrounds that aren't too far away from home, mostly biking distance. There's a checklist (in my head) of must haves. The parks with the little toddler areas are best, even better if they stand alone! The girls don't like the little toddler area if there is a big glorious monster of a big kid play area right next to it. The city over has a park which is good, there is enough separation between big and little kid things and you pretty much hit the mother-load of things to do there. Downside is there are a lot of kicking and screaming toddlers being carried out of that park. Too fun? Maybe. Never go there without a bribe to get them to the car.

Last night we hit up a new park my friend Sarah told me about that had an awesome toddler playground. It was the sweetest one I've ever seen with tunnels, slides, bubble windows and mirrors. My kids didn't like it. They wanted to watch the big kids across the way. Maybe on a slow day we'll go back.

Today by mistake I found a tiny little park that had a little toddler crawling tunnel and slide (no worries of broken bones on this one), baby swings and then two big huge twisty slides. The huge slides were ok because the massive staircase had guardrails so kids can't fall off the high platforms and they were just slides so there were no tunnels or other things making it impossible for me to grab my kids quickly when they darted away from me. This one was a hit and Royce and I biked back tonight to play again. It's a long bike ride but the girls didn't mind at all and the exercise was good for us. Of course we ended up having to take them down the big slides a few times but no kicking and screaming when we left. I think this will be our new hangout, for now.

Never in my life did I think the art of playgrounds could be so complicated. Or maybe this is just the beauty of working it all out with one and a half year old twins.




Rasa holding her bribe. Leaving can be very hard