It's been dark and stormy since last night (when my little Owen came crawling into bed with me because he hates lightning) and I have been sick with this chest cold/fever/crap since Wednesday, so this morning I took the kids to Edinborough Park, our local, gigantic, indoor playground. When the boys were two and a half, I took them to this same playground and ended up having a panic attack, as I was sure that I had lost Owen somewhere in the maze of nets and slides for eternity. (Note: The playground is enclosed to prevent escape, but this did not comfort me.) I don't know whether I was more scared that I really wasn't going to find him or that he would realize he was lost and end up crying, alone, traumatized for life by playground equipment, but it was gut-wrenching enough that I didn't take them back for a year.
A year later it was only slightly better, as I grappled with either having to climb through the 37-foot-high monstrosity with the kids (not as fun as you might imagine), or hover at the bottom, biting my nails and hoping they would eventually emerge from one of the six million slides and tunnels. If the boys hadn't loved it so much (and if winter wasn't so long and depressing), I would have just sworn the whole thing off, but instead I kept going back for more, hoping I would get braver right along with the boys.
During all of these visits, I silently cursed (and envied) the moms who were lounging around the perimeter, leisurely sipping coffee and reading books, seemingly unconcerned with the black hole-like qualities of this play structure.
Well, today, I got to be one of those moms! After remembering to stop at Starbucks on the way (there is nothing but overpriced vending machines in the play area) we arrived at the park. I told the boys to stay together, and they were off! And there I sat, sipping my carmel macchiato and reading my book, trying not to notice the throngs of parents anxiously searching for their children or, worse, yelling up at them, trying to get their attention from 30 feet away.
I had to stop myself from snickering when the mother next to me turned and asked, "Excuse me, but where is the Starbucks?" as if there was a beacon of hope in this chaos. "I stopped on the way," I shrugged, as she dejectedly sipped her $2 bottle of diet cherry cola.
And so, the park that I once feared and loathed has become my ally...a peaceful place...a solution to the conundrum of how to entertain children on a rainy day, without TV, while simultaneously being able to read several chapters of a book of my choosing.
There are days when I miss when my boys were babies. And then there are days like these.
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