I'm a few days behind in some of my blog posts. That's always a pretty good indicator that we've been busy, and the kids' imaginations are in high gear.
Last Thursday, the first day of summer vacation, we headed for the playground. In jackets.
And polar fleece.
The cool termperatures didn't seem to bother the kids. They were too busy running around and climbing. Sydney's latest accomplishment? Conquering her fear of the sleek new slide. Note, there are no real sides on it.
Through some kind of physics... or geometry... or other math (thus illustrating again why I majored in journalism) some playground designer came up with a new slide that looks like a giant, curved tongue. There are slight ridges on the outer edge of each curve, and somehow that's enough to keep the kids from tumbling off of it. Each time Sydney safely reached the bottom, she performed a little happy dance - clearly quite proud of herself and wanting everyone to share in her glory.
AJ, meanwhile, commandeered the ship-shaped climbing structure. He'd come prepared with pirate hat and sword and quickly recruited all the other kids (except for one boy, he told me, who didn't want to play) and even a dad to join his pirate crew.
Every so often they'd be forced to abandon ship, jumping down or sliding off, and then making mock swimming motions. Playing along, I warned them to watch out for the sharks. Sydney looked back in all seriousness and answered, "Those are just dolphins."
One boy in particular (shown on the right in the photo below) seemed to latch on to AJ and the make believe adventure. They played together for at least a half hour, with the boy always addressing AJ as, "Sir."
I asked AJ how he'd convinced the kid to call him that, and AJ answered, "I don't know. He just started doing it."
A natural born leader.
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