Playground

When we lived in Greenwich, I took the kids to playgrounds in Port Chester all the time. We went to Lyon's Park, and we went to the "baby playground," which was basically a smaller playground that nobody else seemed to go to.

Now we live within walking distance of both, and we go to Lyon's Park more because that's where people go, and where all of Jack's games are. And we play on our own swingset. But today, for a change, we went to the baby playground again.

It was a pretty hot day, so I sat on a bench in the shade with the water while the kids played. They went up and down the slides, and at one point Jack asked me to help him slide down the pole -- then said he was afraid when I came over -- then I talked him into it, and he DID, and was giddy with accomplishment and immediately wanted to do it AGAIN. At another point, while I was sitting about 20 yards away, I heard Kate yelling, looked up, and saw her hanging from one of the monkey bars, stuck, feet flailing wildly. I ran to get her, fortunately before she fell.

I pushed them both on swings, then they switched swings and I pushed them again. It was kind of nice, nostalgic. They ran around a little more, then we were going to leave....when suddenly I heard "Jack R!" And it was his friend Brian from school, and his brother. So we were there another hour and a half.

Finally we left, tired, sweaty, red-cheeked. (I promise I used sunblock, but you know, we weren't planning on being there for two hours.) We went home, split a gallon of water, turned on the air conditioner. And the kids played a board game while I thought how small they used to be on those swings.