Parks are for playing, not sitting.

Yesterday, it was so nice outside that after swim lessons while the kids were still dripping wet, we were able to go to the park and play. 

Both kids immediately climbed the human-sized spider web all the way to the top and I began wondering just exactly how hurt they could get from falling off.  I decided it would depend on how many times they got tangled up on their way down, but the possibility of severe injury was very great.  And since this thought was in my head, Mae decided to go ahead and test it.  Except she fell more from the bottom than the top, as she was getting down, but she still caught her arm on one of the ropes on the way down.  She laid on the ground, scream-bawling and holding her arm.  I ran over to her and inspected it: scraped but not severed.  I decided she would survive.  Her screaming was very persistent so I told her that maybe we should go home and get a band-aid.  She abruptly stopped crying, said, "No, I'm not done playing," then jumped up to begin the uphill spider web trek once again.

After the web fun dulled, the kids decided to have monkey bar races.  They made me race, too.  I let them win, but they didn't believe me.  (Neither do I.)

Next, Kyler and Mae crammed themselves into the tire swing.  They're almost too big to fit at the same time.  I began spinning them around and didn't stop until they were both screaming like little girls.  When they finally did come to a stop, they both tried to exit the tire swing through the tire hole and got stuck: chest to chest and face to face.  They stood there like that for quite a while, arguing over whose fault this predicament was.  Every time one of them tried to move, they would end up bumping the other in a painful way.  They finally looked at me, told me to quit laughing and then left it up to me to fix the situation.  After carefully lifting Kyler out, Mae was free, too.

As the sun was setting and I was thinking we should be on our merry way, Mae told me that I had to try out her obstacle course.  I'm pretty sure she was making it up as she went along, but she sure was having fun so I just tried not to let her see me laugh ("Go down the slide backwards, then jump in the air and fart if you can.")  In the meantime, Kyler somehow got himself stuck on top of the rocking crocodile.  He was nicely asking if somebody would please help him and Mae said, "I will."  I just love it when they get along so well.  She walked right over to him, gave him a nice, big shove and watched him fall to the ground.  She said, "There, you're not stuck anymore," and walked away.  From where I sat, atop the monkey bars, I could see Kyler give Mae his oh-no-you-didn't face.  As he heisted himself up off of the ground and ran full-speed toward her from behind, I made the decision that it was time to go home.  Announcing this aloud saved Mae by mere seconds as Kyler yelled, "Last one to the Jeep is a rotten egg!"  He changed his goal from sister-tackle to first-kid-buckled and the rest is just a memory. 

To be honest, I didn't even want to go to the park.  But I know that the day you let it be known that you don't want to go to the park is the day you become labeled 'old and dull'.  From a kid's standpoint, if you don't want to run and jump and swing and play, you may as well shrivel up and die.  What is life without a playground?  And I did have so much fun yesterday that my heart beat faster and we laughed until we felt tears stinging our eyes.  I never wanna not go to the park again.