A Picnic, The Yellow Park, and a Lesson for James

I took the boys out to Brooklyn Park to have a picnic with Sarah today.  She's only been back at work for three days, but she definitely misses them already.  Two weeks of all the family at home after being at home with Thomas since early April is a lot of family time, which I know she enjoys.  I'm sure she's ready to be back at work, but not being with Thomas and James isn't easy.  I think it is easier, however, with me being home with them rather than having Thomas go straight to day care after her maternity leave was over.  Things are pretty busy for her at work, so having a little time in the middle of the week is a nice little break.  So a picnic is a good opportunity to unwind a bit and have fun with the boys.  This will probably be something we will do on a weekly basis.  

Once we decided to have a picnic, we had to figure out where to go.  A playground was in order.  At three and a half, James is at times really big and at other times just a little boy.  It's always a good idea to check out a playground before we go there.  Instead of checking it out ahead of time, we looked more for a park that would likely have picnic tables a playground as well as some shade.  This was a good park.  None of the play structures were too big nor too advanced for him.

One of the bonuses of having little kids is getting to use playground equipment.  I remember riding a piece of equipment like this when I was little, and having the head of the metal horse spring back on me and bash me in the chin.  Good times.  At least I'm big enough that that won't happen any more.

James feels strongly about parks.  He's got names for different parks, usually based on the color of the equipment, but sometimes based on the equipment.  One of his favorite parks is the Yellow Park.

I'll give you three guesses why this is the Yellow Park, and the first two don't count.

Good things about this park:

• A separate area (not in the picture) with slides and a climbing structure appropriate for little kids.
• Baseball diamonds near by that James can run bases on (this is seriously a good thing, he'll do it over and over and over and over again)
• Really cool slides
• A bouncy bridge
• Plenty of benches and low walls for dad to sit on
• Sand (always soft)
• Diggers
• A ramp up to the tennis court (to repeatedly run up and down and up and down on)
• Proxcimity to the Highland Park library
• Library bathrooms!

Not so good things about the Yellow Park:

• There is a private school near by that uses it throughout the day so it can be busy with big kids sometimes
• A couple day cares that serve older kids also come by
• The diggers are in kind of rough shape.

I asked James today what his favorite part of the Yellow Park is and he told me it was the ramp to run up and down and the bouncy bridge.

The other good thing about this park is that it is right next to the public library in our neighborhood.  I'm sure James would say the best part of the library is the elevator, but it is a pretty decent little branch library and it is great that it is only about a quarter of a mile away.  We go to the library about once a week to check out five or six books.  Whether or not a library book is any good is always a crap shoot.  I tend to avoid checking out books that are in rhyme, but even that isn't always a guarantee.  Sometimes you just get stuck with a mediocre book... and James wants it read just as often as the good ones.

James had some apologizing to do today at the library.  He is much better with books than he used to be, but he ripped the dust cover of a book a couple days ago.  So I told him that he had to tell a librarian what he did and to say that he was sorry.  While we practiced saying what he would say in the foyer of the library, he thought it was kind of funny.  But once we got to the librarian, he covered his face and didn't want to say anything.  She was very friendly, and encouraged him.  He eventually told her that he ripped the dust cover and then started to go into some story about how he was in his room and mom did something and... we cut him off.  I'm sure he was explaining what really happened.  She thanked him for telling her and assured me that as long as the book was fine that it wasn't a problem.  James and I then thanked her and we made our way home.

He's still a little kid, but it is clear that he's really learning and growing.  He seemed to be ashamed of what he did (not because we shamed him, but because he felt bad), and I think he will be more careful with his books.  I am proud of him.