I'll give you something to blog about . . .

After reading a bit by Seth Godin, I felt a little off-kilter about my blog. What is my blog about? Pretty much everything that has to do with darling hubby, the toddler and myself. Well, that leaves a lot to get blogged about doesn't it.

I suppose I could blog about the awesome new grill Coco bought for darling hubby as a late birthday/early Father's Day gift . . .

. . . or the best feature on said grill:

Or how the toddler worked some bubble magic waiting for darling hubby to get grilling.

I could blog about Ironman's creepy, detachable forearms the toddler keeps leaving on the kitchen counter. (A bit too Edward Scissorhands for me. Very tragic.)

I might write about needing a cook-book addiction support group. That's right, 21 cookbooks, 7 recipe magazines, and a manila envelope full of recipes culled from the web. (And I really only use three of them.)

I could even blog about ole Winnie the Pooh here, with a bird feeder stuck on his head:

While I have fancied all of the above blog ideas in my head, I'm not really blogging about any of them at this moment (and don't worry, I probably never will).

This entry is all about how the whimsy of a toddler brought us to serendipity at the park.

Diversity of Experience

It began this morning when the toddler and I had competing, and equally earnest, ideas about what we should do today. Suddenly it hit me - I am on summer vacation! So is he! Oh crap, I've gotta entertain this kid for the next two months, almost entirely on my own.

Well, we compromised this morning, and agreed on taking a drive together. We would take in the picturesque sites of downtown and the shore of the bay. As we were driving, it occurred to me that a very nice park and playground were ahead of us - an unintended destination. I remembered that it has fantastic views of the water and downtown, as well as a fishing pier and cafe. We would visit it. Maybe we should visit all of the city parks this summer. It would certainly give us something to do.

Arriving at the playground was uneventful. It has a very large play structure, but the toddler is scrappy. He has no fear whatsoever and dove into play right away. At the time of our arrival, there were about 7 kids there - nothing spectacular.

Then the toddler had to use the potty, so we took a break from playing. When we returned from the restroom, the tenor of the playground had changed. New people had arrived. Adults. Adults that were playing tag with each other on and around the play structure.

The toddler slowly approached the play area but stopped at a ride-on rocket ship to observe the frolicking of the grown-ups. Most of the other children had stopped or slowed down their play to watch the adults play tag as well - it seemed to me that the kids were puzzling over exactly what was happening. After all, their adults (i.e. parents/grandparents/nannies/etc.) were monitoring their kids from the sidelines, and certainly not playing a game of tag with each other.

Even I was taken aback for a moment - at first I thought they were just big kids where big kids shouldn't be. But quickly it came to me what we were all watching: four intellectually disabled adults on a field trip to the playground with their caregiver. (Their caregiver was also playing tag. It was she who told me her preferred label for her charges is intellectually disabled and confirmed my assumption. Our conversation would be a separate entry altogether.)

Just as the realization came to me, two children, a brother and a sister, joined in the game. Other children looked at their parents - this was okay? The toddler gave me the same longing look - did I approve? I waved my hand at him in a shooing motion and he took off for the nearest grown-up in the game, attempting to tackle him.

In what seemed a single, momentous burst, every single person on the playground was suddenly engaged in a rollicking, spirited game of tag.

And even some parents jumped in as well!