3/9/22 Journal: Playground

About a week and half ago, I brought the girls to a park in southwest Cape Coral to play at the playground. It’s kind of a pain doing this without Evi, as Sasha and Norah never play together, yet both usually want or need my attention. Luckily, Sasha made a friend quickly, and they ran off playing whatever the hell little girls play. I could then focus on stifling all of Norah’s attempts to horribly maim herself.

You probably think I’m kidding. I can assure you I am not. Norah is two-years-old, and constantly plays on all the playground climbers meant for kids much older. This time, she immediately jumped on the rock climbing wall, which meant I have two choices:

1. Walk up behind her and kind of awkwardly cradle her butt as she goes up in case she falls. Or…
2. Pull her down from an activity wholly inappropriate for her age, which will start a kicking and screaming fit akin to something you’d see in a slasher movie.

So I go with Option #1. When she got to the top, she was ecstatic. Which could only mean one thing: Let’s Do it Again. Repeat 875 times.

Meanwhile, Sasha and her new friend were playing some game involving princesses. I only know this because they kept waving imaginary magic wands at each other, and seemingly were arguing over which princess either of them were.

Sasha’s new friend was black, by the way. That always warms my heart. They say that we’re born with love and hate is learned. I don’t know if I 100% agree. I think there’s always a subconscious fear of something or someone that is different. I think you have to proactively learn acceptance.

Or maybe not. I probably have no idea what the hell I’m talking about. All I know is I had to deal with a lot of racism growing up (I’m Asian) and I’m sure the hell not allowing my daughters to grow up as bigots.

“Daddy,” said Sasha. “I have to pee.”

Ah, shit! We have a little potty in our minivan, but what the hell was I going to do with Norah? If I brought her with us for no reason, I’d have to buckle her in her car seat to make sure she won’t run, and she would scream bloody murder. However, if I left her in the park, she’d always be in sight, but the little shit would probably find a way to, I don’t know, go bungee jumping or something.

I decided to leave Norah and take Sasha to the van. Norah, of course, immediately located the monkey bars and climbed to the top, probably eight feet off the ground, blocking all the six-year-old boys from crossing from one side to the other. Sasha, of course, took the longest pee known to mankind. I could see the boys looking at each other, wondering what they were supposed to do.

“Sasha, Jesus, did you swallow a lake?”

“Almost done, Daddy.”

Some of the other parents started looking around, presumably wondering what irresponsible dolt left his two-year-old alone on such inappropriate playground equipment. I was too far away to explain what was going on. And while seeing Norah up that high was scary, I’ll be honest, that girl is strong. I really didn’t have a fear that she would fall.

And she didn’t. Sasha wrapped up her pee seemingly three hours later, and I was able to pull Norah down off of the monkey bars. I decided then that I was going to sit on a bench and not chase either of these little bastards anymore. Sasha went back to playing princesses with her friend. I tried to not think about what Norah was doing.