Playgroud

Today was the warmest day my family has ever enjoyed in Illinois. By nine o' clock this morning the thermostat had climbed in to the high sixties... and the kids and I were getting a little stir-crazy. Mind you, by that time we'd been up for four hours. Long enough to do two loads of wash; clean the kitchen after eggs and toast; and watch several back-to-back episodes of the Smurfs. It was time to get outside.

Of course it had rained last night, so despite the current sunny weather, I knew it was still a muddy swamp in our back yard. Therefore, it was off to the playground. We were not alone. The playground was filled with gleeful little kids and tons of nannies. Most were in shorts and sandals. I could tell I'm still a Floridan at heart because though we were wearing short sleeves, we were also dressed in pants and sneakers.

The kids had more fun than I can describe to you. Normy made instant friends with this sweet little guy his own age and they chased each other from slide to slide. Georgie was enamored by the "big" girls and followed around a pair of adorable five year-olds who decided she would be their little doll for the day. I chatted up a couple of the nannies and stared enviously at the moms who were camped out at a picnic table with a bottle of wine! I hope they were moms and not nannies, anyway.

After and hour and a half of mad-capped playground adventures my little ones were pink cheeked and starting to get crazy. Normy had this crazed look in his eyes and was giggling maniacally. At any moment he was going to start pushing kids off the jungle-gym. Time to go.We collected our things and hit the bricks.

Georgia fell asleep two minutes into the car ride. Once home, I decided I could take everything in at once. I had a bag slung over each shoulder, Georgia still sleeping in my arms, and a sippy cup in my teeth. Of course, once inside our back gate Normy goes heading straight for the mud. "NOOO!" my mind shouts at him, but of course I have a sippy in my mouth and a sleeping baby. So I did what any mom would have done. I hurried inside, dumped everything I was holding and raced back out side to collect my little mud-puppy before he could get too dirty.