Pick Up the Park, Please!

We made a morning of visiting Jason at the hospital today. We wanted Nathaniel to have a visual of where "Daddy" works, so I loaded up the kids and headed to the base. I needed to pick up one thing from GNC, so we stopped by the BXtra (and I bought Amelia her first baby doll--her eyes light up whenever she sees one of her babies, kitties, teddies or monkeys these days. At 16 months, I think we've officially entered the baby doll phase It's amazing. I've certainly never demonstrated how to "properly" play with dolls, and yet she took the baby bottle accessory that came with it and held it right up to her new baby's mouth. Then she laid baby on the couch and gave it kisses! These kids never cease to surprise me.) OK, but back to base. Jason was in a morning surgery, so we had another hour to kill before we could meet up with him. I took the kids to the awesome park behind the commissary--it's a giant, shaded (oh-so-important this summer) 3-part park. Nate and Amelia explored all the sections--the 0 to 3-year-old section with a play train, car and ramps; the 3 to-8-y-o section with bigger steps, a tower, a twisty slide and suspension bridges; and the 9 to 12-y-o section (or smtg like that) with just every little bell and whistle a playscape could have--tunnels, bridges, climbers, towers, slides, twists, hangers, etc. About 30 minutes into play time, Nate found a plastic shopping bag and shouts, "I found trash, Mom!" I thought I'd put the candy wrapper that Amelia was about to put in her mouth inside the bag and throw it away. But for those who know how task-focused my son can be, we proceeded to play "garbage man" around the park for the next 30 minutes. I was a little disgusted when he brought used band-aids to the pretend "garbage truck," but I had enough when he ran up to me holding...a used tampon. Arghh. Seriously. I have no idea. I'm guessing (or hoping) some stray animal hauled it out of the park restrooms and tried to bury it in the wood chips. Needless to say, I tried to keep my composure while simultaneously disinfecting my child and ending this altruistic game of make-believe.



Oh, lunch in the hospital cafeteria was uneventful (minus Nate spilling my full cup of lemonade onto my tray). And both Nate and Mia enjoyed running circles around Dr. Dad during our tour.