Parkin'

There are a lot of things about kids that I just never considered before having one. For example, parenting is really just an exercise in figuring out what your kid wants to do, deciding if it is acceptable, and rolling with it...lather, rinse, repeat. Because, really, you don't have much control, or even say, of what they do, eat, play with, etc. It is all a big illusion. But that's another post.

This week's discovery is that kids have to learn how to play. We have been going to the park the last several nice days. We took G to the park last year, but she was too little to really do anything. We just plopped her in the swing and she loved it. This year, though, she is big enough to actually play at the park. And big enough to decide what she wants to play with/on. The first day we took her (last Friday, if you read my Twitter...and if not, why not?) she mostly just wandered around, looking at all the equipment, watching all the bigger kids, trying to figure out what the heck she was supposed to do. She tried some climbing, and we took her down the slide a couple of times, but mostly she just...wandered.

The next day we went to the park closer to home. This one has a sandbox. After some more initial wandering, she sat down in the sand, very timidly, and proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes piling sand, getting a little more into after 20 minutes or so.

Tuesday we went back to the park. This time, she ran right to the playground equipment. She was still a little timid. But after the 30th or so time down the slide, I think it's safe to say she's figured it out. What fun! (And exhaustion, since she's too little to do the slide by herself.)