Sunday, January 9

The trouble with playgrounds


Here's the munchkins enjoying one of their favorite games, SimCity 2000. I found it as abandonware for free, and it runs wonderfully well on a dosbox frontend called D-fend Reloaded.

Alex loves to build miles and miles of train tracks, or highways, or roads, but he hasn't yet got the knack of connecting power lines from his power plant to un-powered zones. Once he masters that, he'll be building his own cities with no help.

Today was yet another of those gray, raw January days where the overcast sky is so low it seems barely beyond the treetops. It gets oppressive, like being in a room with too low of a ceiling.

When it's like that outside, this apartment gets really, really small. So we busted out of it at lunchtime and took the kids down to the indoor playground at McDonalds a block away.

I forgot that on Sunday, a lot of families hit up McDonalds to let loose the children who have been sitting still for an hour and a half.

I sat and watched my children like a hawk to make sure they didn't get hurt, or hurt other kids. Alex was particularly hyper, so this was a reasonable concern.

Something I noticed:

When your one-year old and nearly-four-year-old are playing with kids in that age range, between ages 1 and 4, there is a limit to how much damage they can inflict on each other. Little kids just aren't very strong.

It's when the big strapping 10 year olds come in, and start climbing up the outside of the play equipment, and kicking off the walls, that I get nervous. Because when a kid is that much bigger and stronger, there is no limit to how much damage they can do to a smaller kid.

To my relief, Ryan declared it Time To Leave after the big kids showed up. The munchkins came home and slept for three hours each.

There is an upshot to letting them run around like maniacs for an hour.

3 comments:

Farm Girl said...

Aw yes, the magic of playgrounds and letting them sleep all afternoon. I was thinking of that this afternoon and how cold it is and how this time of year was so hard to find things to keep you guys busy.
At least you have McDonald close by.
I know how tired I get being in the house and then I go for a walk and I am so glad to get back inside. I hope your Monday is better I could see bits of blue sky this morning. With ground fog rising in the distance.

Meg said...

I remember going to playgrounds when we were younger and I would hover over my brother and sister when the Big Kids showed up too, because they just don't care about the little ones. Always made me nervous then, and I wasn't a mom!

Anonymous said...

Another danger of big kids: Language. I'd get so mad when I'd take the little kids I was babysitting down to the park, and there'd be these teenagers lounging on the slides and talkin' smack. The little ones were too young to understand the words (and hopefully not paying attention enough to remember them) but it made me want to backstab the teenagers with a ballista.

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