Afternoon at the Park

Laura took Mal to a cake festival this morning.

I sat up until all hours of the morning writing and watching Netflix. I got up just in time to tell them good-bye. I went to brunch, then went back to bed.

After they got home, Laura asked whether it would be okay for her to go to Trader Joe's to pick up meals for D and me while she and Mal are gone for a couple of days.

Very shortly after that, Mal had an idea.

So he and I went to the lake. Several families were there. Mal had a couple of bad times, but mostly it was positive.

In the pavilion next to the playground, a woman with one family group was organizing a bunch of toys under a towel. I tried to compliment the artwork on her leg, but she ignored me.

When we headed into the playground, there was an old guy (I suspect a Greek patriarch...more about that later) climbing out on the tree limb that's basically horizontal. It has a support post helping with its weight. The "rude" lady with the artwork chastised him in sign language that he was going to break it, so he hopped down very nimbly.

Soon after that, she took a Sea Patroller and tucked it away under the towel, then they wandered away.

Mal really wanted to play with that Sea Patroller. I told him he'd have to find the owner and ask. He asked one little girl (who was part of the suspected Greek guy's group), and she was down. As long as he'd tell her what rules were.

He took her to show her. I cut it off when he pulled up the towel. He told me that I was making him very sad.

Then we followed that family to the volleyball pit.

Along the way, I met a guy named Randy. He said he enjoyed the 70s a bit too much, has survived tongue cancer, recently got divorced, and is looking for a new place to rent. Oh, and he's really scared of ghosts, so he wouldn't want the place across the street. He's been in the area for 20 years now and has some property around town.

He also has a daughter named Sandra, who just turned 5.

They were there with her cousins. One of them, Zane, is just old enough to have a few words. His sister (whose name I didn't catch) is fiercely protective.

We went through the basketball court to get to the volleyball pit. Someone had been there with sidewalk chalk. It was quite well done. In the middle of more "normal" stuff, someone had written an alphabet containing several Greek letters (hence my suspicions about that patriarch's origins. I'm not sure they were behind it, but they were the only family there speaking a language that was neither English nor ASL).

In the volleyball pit, Mal played with the rest of the kids I suspect are Greek. He was more interested in the boys who were trying to hit a volleyball over the net than in the girl who was going to play Sea Patrol with him at first. At felt bad for her when he basically snubbed her when she tried to play. I think she may have had a double whammy: she may have been both the youngest and the only girl.

One of those boys told Mal that he didn't want to get down into the sand because he didn't have any clothes to change into. And he doesn't like getting dirty. He warned Mal that maybe he
shouldn't get sandy either. Mal told him that he has spare clothes in case he poops his pants.

I wound up getting a foot cramp from walking around in the sand (or maybe it was the little foot race that Mal proclaimed he won, even though I'm pretty sure he didn't. Then again, I was looking the wrong way when we crossed the finish line, so I can't be sure) and sat down on the grass to massage it away.

I didn't see what happened next. But one of the mothers suddenly started yelling that everybody was done and had to get out of the sand. And she was picking the little girl up and dusting sand off her.

I think one of the other boys tried to blame Mal, but she insisted that they have to pay attention and be aware of what's going on around them.

Once they were there, Mal decided to go from there to the basketball court.

We first ran into Zane for the first time there. He was hanging out with a couple of older boys. We let Zane escape, and one of those boys took him back to his mother.

Mal wanted to go home and get our basketball. We'd settled into the car when he saw Zane, Sandra, and the nameless sister playing with bubbles and decided he wanted to join them first.

That went fine until the sister found a big stick. It resembled an old broom handle. She played with it for a bit, then Mal demanded a turn.

And, being Mal, he got crazy with it and nearly hit Zane.

They told me, and I told him that he can't just swing things around like a crazy person. He apologized deeply. They didn't accept that as enough and wandered away with the stick (one of the mothers told Mal that she'd eaten it...then got really amused when he halfway believed her) He decided that he needed one (he called it a tapper) of his own. And his own bubble machine.

We ran into one of the kids who'd been playing with the volleyball who hooked Mal up with an awesome stick that he'd found in the muddy shore.

After I washed the stick off, Mal headed back to the sandbox where the girls and Zane were playing happily.

They were *not* happy to see him. They (especially Zane's sister; I don't think Sandra's old enough to care much) told Mal that he's no longer their friend and that he can't play with their  toys or them.

He went crying to me. I did my best to soothe him, but it didn't help.

After a while of that, they relented and decided he could be their friend again. He yelled "Yay!" and apologized yet again. They said they were sorry for making him cry. He told me that he got to be their friend again, and I added my own "Yay!"

And then it was all good.

They worked on filling up a bucket of sand. After a while, the older sister had Mal ask me to join them. He did, and I told them "No thank you" because I didn't want to risk another foot cramp. She goaded Mal to tell me. So he did. I again told them "No thank you." She had Mal demand "Now!"

I laughed and asked whether that works with her dad. She sheepishly said yes.

Then she said "please," so I did.

They got the bucket about half full, mixed it thoroughly, added the last of the water from my bottle, switched to mixing with their feet (Mal asked for a turn at that, then forgot about it), and then tried to flip it.

The older girl was strong enough to pick it up and move it, but not to flip it over. So I handled that part for them.

Then they moved on to burying her feet and legs. But only up to her knees so she wouldn't get her shorts dirty.

My contribution started with little handfuls of sand that Zane brought me.

After her legs were covered, Sandra decided that looked like fun. So she pulled up her pants legs and sat down next to her and started working on burying herself. I pitched in with a shovel.

Meanwhile, Mal was having fun jumping over the "sand castle."

He started humming, which impressed Zane's sister. She asked if it was the Mario theme. He informed her that he was Mario and it's the Super Mario Brothers song. They insisted that he is not Mario. I saw the look in his eyes and warned him not to destroy the "castle."

He said he really wanted it to be a Goomba, so I warned him sternly not to jump on it. One of the girls asked what a goomba was. He explained that it's poop. She proclaimed that sand can't turn into poop. Then she looked at me and asked whether it could.

I helped finish burying them, and they started yelling for their mothers to rescue them. Mal offered to save them, but he simply wasn't strong enough (they insisted they had to be dragged out: he couldn't just unbury them).

He boogied out of there when their yells got too loud for him to handle. Their moms thought the situation was hilarious when they got over their first panic.

The family group with that first deaf woman was running around with an electric car. Mal joined them. There was an empty seat. So, when it stopped, he hopped aboard.

Very shortly after that, a mother demanded he get out. She warned the kids that they had 2 more minutes. And the two year old who actually "owns" the car hadn't gotten to ride at all yet.

Mal was disappointed, but he went along when I convinced him that she was talking to him.

They all took turns between running around the car's vicinity and hopping on back to ride along.

Then that mom decided that the 2 year old should have a turn behind the wheel. Her passenger (who'd been driving) handled the accelerator.

She ran over one of the other kids, and her mom decreed that they shouldn't get too close to the car after that. And that they should probably stay out from in front of it completely.

This lasted until they hit a traffic cone and high-centered.

It made for a precious picture (the driver was winking). I wish I'd gotten her to send me a copy, but my phone's battery was dead.

Shortly after that, she let Mal have a chance to drive. He did pretty well, though I did have to back him up from a rock that was too big to just roll over. Then another, older boy showed up, she decided it was his turn, and he took off.

Shortly after that, Mal decided that he was finally ready to go home and get the basketball.

I told him that it was getting dark, and I was getting cold.

He insisted that he wasn't cold, but accepted that I was.

On the way out, we said good-bye to Randy, Zane, Sandra, et al. Randy reiterated his desire to stay in touch. They were just settling in to eat crawfish (which at least 3 of them had offered to share).

On the way home, Mal decided that he wanted both oranges in a can and fruit snacks.

As soon as we got home, Mal settled in with his Kindle.

Laura got back from shopping about 10 minutes after that.

We're both a little sad about the way the split day worked out, but it did let me be an engaged and energized parent just about the time that she was ready to call it quits.