The mall playground

The mall the nearest our home has built one of those indoor rubberized playgrounds, so during the winter we have made several trips there so Jack can have a good time and burn off some of that pent up energy. Since we didn’t have Emily with us last week, we were able to get out more easily, and Thursday we made it to the playground. When it was within sight, Jack started exclaiming, “Play! Play! Play!” I finally released him from the stroller, and he did what I call his “Happy Dance” before taking the first of at least 100 trips down the slide.

It’s always an interesting people-watching opportunity for me while we’re there. On this particular trip, the playground wasn’t all that crowded, for which we were thankful, but there was still enough of a mix of people to make it interesting. There was Yelling All The Time Mommy, who kept interrupting the screams of joy from the kids with screams of, “RILEY!” …. “NOLAN!!” …. “BRADY!!”… and yanking them away from whatever they were doing. After we had been there a little while, Biker Daddy came in. He was dressed in a t-shirt that said “CHOPPER!” and the sleeves had been torn off to show off his muscles (if you can call them that). He had with him a cute-as-a-button blonde little girl dressed in camouflage, and though it seemed that he was trying to proclaim his tough manliness in what they were wearing, he played with her in the sweetest way, and even loudly and unselfconsciously asked if she needed to go potty.

I guess Jack is a tough kid. He had a head-on collision with one of the unfortunate children of Yelling All The Time Mommy, and the kid (who was at least two years older than Jack) immediately began crying and ran to his mommy, and Jack just stared at him, with a bemused look on his face, and then went back to the slide. Jack discovered that the benches that line the area are just as much fun as the regular playground stuff, and started running back and forth on the long bench where I was sitting. He’d run up and give me a kiss and then run all the way down to the other end, and all the way back to collapse on me and give me another kiss before running off again. Such a sweet boy.