Just this past week we were clued into a nifty little playground just minutes from home. We’ve been driving 15 minutes to get a good playground, and then only on evenings or weekends when we can use man-to-man defense on the kids. The further playground has huge body of water near it and I’m not comfortable watching the two kids on my own when one of them could easily zip down the hill, out of my sight, and head to the lake. Me, I’m just a little neurotic…

This new playground is small, not near a large body of water, and has the perfect combination of shtuff to develop gross motor skills and practice strength, balance and coordination. Perfect for my little Chee. Perfect for my even littler Ess. Perfect.

The piece de resistance of the playground is the zip line. Particularly for Ess. We have to pry her fingers off and then she screams, “Again! Again!! Again!!” Chee loves it as well. Especially when she discovered she can let go and crash onto about 9 inches of rubber mulch. Can we say proprioceptive input anyone?

I love this playground. I love watching Chee balance across the moving bridge and climb the rock wall. Going to the playground with her used to be pretty dull. She generally just circled the playground, maybe climbed a few steps, possibly went down the teeniest slide. She always stood at the bottom of the enclosed slide and watched other kids come down. Thanks to gravitational insecurity and a whacky vestibular sense, she wouldn’t go down long slides or climb tall ladders. And this was just last summer.

Things have certainly changed.