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August 24, 2005

A Tale of Two Parks

Amidst the chores of biter biscuit stained laundry, cleaning off pee from the sofa, discovering old Spliggle bottles at the bottom of the toy bucket, and doing web-work for a client in a non-English character-set (in a language that I don’t speak,)* I took a break to take my boys to some parks:

Yesterday, we went to a magical park that includes a swimming pool that is 4 feet at its deepest and only inches at its shallowest. The majority of the pool is covered in sand. It is a beach without the risk of accidentally touching a fish or being swept out to sea! Alas, there is a $5 parking fee, plus $2 for each kid and $3 for each adult. But Husband says maybe we can get some sort of season pass for next year. This park closes in two weeks; I am disappointed I didn’t discover it earlier.

To be fair, others discovered it for us and told us to get our butts there, but I was lazy and didn’t go until yesterday. Typically, things aren’t as good as promised, but this was an amazing exception. It is magic.

Then today, we went to a local favorite. Our Mothers’ Club had been contacted by the paper because they wanted to get photographs of mothers playing with their children in a social setting. Some highlights:

• Spliggle enjoyed the parking lot more than the plethora of winding sidewalks amongst ample running grass.


• The Cat decided that it was uncool that a photographer was there and kept yelling, “No, Picture Man! No picturlers!”


• Spliggle adopted a pinecone. He snuggled it until it started to fall apart, then decided to eat it.


• The Cat chose to respond to people only by growling (he had a tough morning which reversed itself in the afternoon after an accidental nap.) My friend Stacy asked if he was mad at her because of what happened at her son’s party. Poor gal.


• Spliggle hugged every black metal bike pole thingy in turn. Pause. Hug. Move to the next one. Pause. Hug. Move on…until he found a wooden one (a hitching post?) and tried to eat it.


• When Spliggle fell during one of his many attempted escapes dashing towards the parking lot, a friend of mine righted him only to be confronted by the Cat. He looked at her nervously, stammering, “No. No. That’s. That’s” and he looked my way, “That’s Spliggie!” as if to indicate that he belonged to me. Adorably protective!

The newspaper photographer ended up getting a fantastic shot of two of my friends with their tiny ones on a blanket. Darn that Cat for running away! Spliggle, why did you have to fall the instant the camera clicked when you were posed so beautifully with that gorgeous one-year-old-chickie? Where is my fame?

But one of the best moments came when my friend Stacy suddenly sucked in some air with an audible gulp, “Kari. You know how people talk about looking like their kids? Well, I just got it. I looked over at Richie and realized that I was seeing myself in a spiked hairdo with a green shovel.”

I laughed. She continued, “Damn. I mean, I don’t think I’d look good in a spiked hairdo, but…” She kept shaking her head in disbelief.

“I can go get you a green shovel!” I offered helpfully.

*= I would have added “cleaning up the flour explosion,” but my husband did that! Yay Husband!

Posted by karianna at August 24, 2005 09:32 PM

Comments

Posted by: Julie at August 25, 2005 10:58 AM