Fun at PaPa's Playground

For those of you with children, have you noticed your parents being a little more, shall we say, cool, with your kids? For example, my dad built a swing area, sandbox and seesaw for my kids. He had to use sand from the sandbox once while he was mixing cement. We came down the following weekend and Maddy asked him where all her sand went. He told her he had to use it to build a wall, and then he loaded her in the truck and they went and bought some more. I'm thinking, you know, when I was a kid, not only did I not have a sandbox, he dang sure wouldn't have just gone and bought me some more sand. He would have told me to play in the rocks. Okay, maybe not, but you get my point.

We went to my dad's (fondly known as PaPa to the grandkids) this weekend to celebrate his birthday. The weather was lovely, compared to the 8 inches of snow we had on Friday. Saturday was sunny and about 55. Maddy took advantage of the nice weather to play on the swings and seesaw. (The sandbox was wet). She was swinging along, and I was taking some pictures. All of a sudden, she's on the ground with a "what the blue hell just happened?" look on her face. The swing seat had broken in half, and she hit the ground with enough forward momentum to make her slide about two feet. After making sure she was okay, I laughed so hard. Poor child. She was more embarassed than hurt. Maddy has requested that the swings be rebuilt, perhaps with steel seats. She has also requested some padding be installed underneath.

I didn't get pictures of the buttslide, but here are a few shots of her in PaPa's playground. Don't you wish you were 9 again?

The seesaw is about 20 feet long, and one heavy mamajama

Balance is key

Before the break

After the break