A Second Chance

For the past two weeks Lauren has been begging me to take her to the park. She had it all planned out. We would first buy food from a drive through restaurant, since she doesn't care for brown bag sandwiches. We would then head for the park where we would enjoy our little picnic lunch. Then we would have a great time playing on the playground together. As much as I like to make her happy, I found myself repetitively telling her no, not today. I just didn't want to go to the park. Then I began to think about it and realized that in her whole life I can only remember taking her to the park less than a handful of times. What kind of mother am I? This realization forced me to examine my reasons for park aversion. At the time Austin and Amanda were born, many other woman I knew were also having babies. This naturally led to many play dates at the park with these toddlers and their mothers. What sounds like a fun afternoon in the park really wasn't that fun for me. First of all, little tiny kids climbing massive playground structures just plain scares me. I spent most of the time following my kids around because I was so worried they would plunge to their death if I weren't there to catch them. The day I saw my tiny dare devil daughter dangling (how's that for alliteration) from some monkey bars I nearly had a heart attack. When I was able to relax a bit and settle on the grass with the other moms I would usually find them involved in a full blown gossip-fest. There was also the catty competition over which mom was thinner, whose son was smarter, who's little girl was most petite, and whose husband made the most money. Finally I'd had enough and my park days became a thing of the past. Now I have this third child wanting to go to the park with her mommy. Yesterday I finally gave in. We picked up slices of pizza at Pizza Hut Express and headed to our city park to enjoy a little picnic. Immediately two adorable little girls ran over with handfuls of squirmy worms and invited Lauren to come play with them. It was a warm beautiful day and I enjoyed reading my book while Lauren played. I realized that at age six she wasn't going to kill herself having fun on the playground. After she was through playing with the kids I pushed Lauren on the swings, gave her monkey bar lessons and played a few rounds of tic-tac-toe. Before we left a cute little bushy tailed squirrel came up to visit and Lauren fed him crumbs from her pizza crust. I have to admit that we had a very pleasant afternoon in the park and I'm glad that Lauren forced me to give it a second chance. We might even go back sometime.