Come, Mommy

Yesterday the boys and I attended a playdate at local park. I have seen this park many times in passing, but I had never explored it before yesterday. The town next to us built it about ten years ago in celebration of the 300th birthday of the organization of the town’s government. It’s several acres of land with many walking/jogging trails, shade trees, lilacs (note to self - must visit next Spring),  and a gorgeous fountain. When one of the members of my local mothers’ group organized a playdate there and mentioned the terrific playground, I signed up.

We arrived at the park, managed to drag Kiri away from the fountain (the boy loves water - why did I not think to bring a change of clothes for him?), met up with one of the moms and her children, and made our way to the playground.

The equipment was wonderful. I remember not wanting to play on monkey bars as a child because the metal bars inevitably hurt my hands and left blisters if I continued on for long. This place had yard after yard of monkey bar pathway, but the bars were made of a beautiful hard rubber with ridges. The bars felt wonderful in my hand, and I even managed to swing across a few bars before stopping. Liam swung his way across and back and then went on to explore other things.

As we went toward the back of the play area, we found another structure made of these same bars, this time strung together with really tight bungee cords and suspended off of a metal frame. Liam climbed up, jumped off, climbed up, jumped off, and then stared at the structure.

Me: “What are you thinking about, Liam?”

Liam: “Well, I’m trying to figure out what this thing is,”

Me: “It’s a climbing structure, right?”

Liam: “Well, yes, of course, Mommy, but what is it really?”

(Note to self - mark my words, Liam will be a pro at sarcasm by his teen years.)

Me: “What?”

Liam: “I mean it looks like something….I know! It’s a spider web!”

And it was! It really was a spider web made of bars and bungee cords that one could climb on, through, and over. It really was a clever piece of playground architecture. Throughout the morning Liam would wander on and off the spider web, obviously enjoying some sort of imaginary game.

I wondered who or what he was imagining himself to be. Finally, Liam ran over, dragged me to the spider web, and with a quick, “Watch me, Mommy! I’m an exciting creature! Really exciting!” he scrambled up to the middle of the spider web.

I asked him who he was, and he started swinging the web through the air as far out and back as the bungee cords would allow.

Liam: “Watch me, Mommy! Wheee! I’m the famous Big Spider and this is my home! Wheee! Wheee!”

Me: “Glad to meet you, Mr. Big Spider. What are you doing on this fine day?”

Liam stopped swinging, looked at me like I really was denser than he thought, and said, most patiently, “I’m doing what all spiders do on playdates,” swing, swing, swing, “Wheee! Woo Hoo! I’m WEBSURFING!!! It’s fun! Wheee!”

I’m sure the poor boy is still wondering what his crazy Mommy thought was so funny that she ended up choking on lemonade after laughing too hard.