A great play date

I was in a bit of a funk earlier today. The children haven't slept well for the last few nights and it's left me completely exhausted. Bryan is still working a whole lot and I was disappointed that not only was he working today, but Zach's soccer game was postponed; presumably due to wet fields.

I believe Bryan has worked every Saturday (and some Sundays) since late January. For us, that's a lot. So, I was feeling pretty over the whole Saturday thing, if you know what I mean... To get out of the house, I'd suggested to the kids that we go to McDonald's Playland for dinner. Then I thought about the Swine Flu. It seemed like a ridiculous risk, so I decided to drive through for McDonald's and hit a local park instead. The weather was perfect. The grass had just been mowed and the smell was in the air. We decided to take a walk on the paved trail and ended up in the far back of our subdivision. We'd crossed two bridges to get there, and enjoyed watching the water trickle down the creek. The kids talked a lot about our upcoming trip to Colorado and Zach kept saying, "I'm an excellent tracker!" I think his Colorado name will be Zach the Tracker. On our way back to the playground, we took the trail up around the baseball field and watched a young team practice. It was great to hear the sound of the aluminum bat. Reminded me of summers watching my brother play ball! Back at the playground, the kids and I enjoyed a mean game of freeze tag. I don't remember the exact rules, so we made them up as we went along. Since Luke doesn't really get the concept of freezing, he just squealed and kept running and sliding. Thankfully Zach's pretty flexible and didn't get upset over his brother ignoring the game rules!

So, what had been a blah day for me ended on a really great high note. The kids were so happy at the park and just kept saying things like: "come slide with me", "chase me", "you can't get me", and "let's explore!" I realized that in all my tiredness (and all of the rain) that I haven't played with them as much as we'd all like recently. Thankfully the children didn't hold a grudge and instead joyfully excepted my offer to play like a child tonight. I couldn't tell you who had the most fun - them or me?