The Talker Gone Wild

The AtHomeTrio went to meet the SAHDs group at a new park this morning. The Talker was excited when we pulled up at the park because they had two huge wooden playscapes. The main deck of the larger playscape was 5 1/2 feet off of the ground, so I thought The Talker might be hesitant to hang out up there for too long. Proving his daddy wrong, The Talker decided first thing to slide down a 7 foot tall fire pole by jumping from the deck to the pole. He made it. 3 beautiful times, right in a row. He did not make it the 4th time. He did not try a 5th time. Yes, he can learn.

The 4th go down the fire pole was UGLY. He did a face plant from five feet into the gravel. At least his feet were most of the way down before he fell. Tears flowed for five or six seconds, until another child went up to the main deck. The Talker hung out with his buddies for a while before trying, quite unsuccessfully, to use the monkey bars. He fell right off of the deck into the gravel. He is now the proud owner of a nice sized scrape right up the back of the leg. Once again he cried for three or seven seconds.

Later, while playing on the much lower toddler playscape, The Talker did a nice re-enactment of his face plant and wiped out while running across the deck. He did not cry this time. He just hopped up, and came and told me "I am ready to go home now."

In the end, his face scrapes match his head scrapes and his leg scrapes, too. I asked The Talker if he liked the new playscape when we got home. He quickly asked me, "Can we go back, now?"

But, I think we will stick to playing on an air mattress on the floor for the rest of the day. Maybe I'll wrap The Talker in bubble wrap, too, just to be safe.