On Friday at daycare, Zac picked up the kids at the same time as two of Alice's good friends' parents were picking up their kids, Anna and Grayson. The kids started playing a bit in front of the school. Zac was talking to the parents, and one suggested an informal playdate at Bond Park on Sunday morning. A few e-mails later, we had it arranged to meet at the boat dock at 10:30 a.m. And I actually remembered to bring bread to feed the ducks for the first time ever.
Simon could not have been happier seeing all the seagulls flying around.
Grayson, Alice, and Anna had fun feeding the buns to the birds and ducks.
We had to walk through the woods to get to the playground, and the kids came across a fort.
They decided to fortify it some more.
These first two videos are actually just two angles of the same log-carrying event.
They worked at putting big logs on the fort for a long time. Then they all had a snack together inside. I was a bit worried it would collapse on them, but luckily it didn't.
Then we all walked over to the playground.
Simon liked playing in the tunnel and going down the slide.
The kids loved playing in this little house connected to the sandbox.
All four kids really loved the swings. And they all cried when it was time to go home.
It was so fun watching the kids interact throughout the morning. They get along really well and are finally able to actually play with each other, rather than by themselves or with the parents. Grayson and Anna are only-children, so there were six adults hovering over 3 1/2 kids, which I found to be a bit intense at times (since my method of parenting--in public anyways--is to only intervene if there's imminent danger or really bad behavior). But we really like this set of parents, so it was a lot of fun because we got to visit with them while the kids were playing in the woods. We did all joke a bit about how a generation earlier, the kids would have been playing in the woods completely unsupervised. I wouldn't consider any of us helicopter parents, and in fact we're all pretty laid back, but it's just how it is these days that respectable parents can't let their kids run off into the woods.
