Park Planning

After yesterday’s impromptu picnic, I decided to try to put a little more planning into one today to take advantage of the 90 degree temperatures.  So I packed up the kids and some sandwiches and their hats and bibs and drove to a new park about a half an hour away.  The park was great; there was a huge grassy ball field and a big play structure that the girls happily ambled around, but my forethought evidently didn’t extend to the summer-like temperatures.  I simply hadn’t switched gears into warm-weather thinking yet.  I had dressed the girls in long pants and long-sleeved shirts and neglected to apply sunscreen on any of us.  So after just a few minutes of playtime, the girls were flushed and sweaty.  I didn’t want to leave yet, given we had driven all the way over there, so I just kept them well hydrated, rolled up their pants and sleeves and showed them how to play in the shade underneath the slide.  We were soon joined under the slide by three other kids, probably each around age 5, who were also seeking shade and diversion.  The kids were enthralled by the girls and made themselves quite useful by alerting me anytime one of my girls tried to eat rocks or wood chips.  One boy who seemed unable to pronounce the letter “r,” kept calling everything my girls did “adowable.”  I thoroughly agreed.  The whole scene was, indeed, adowable.