Smells like Waffles

It was such a nice day today and it was a gift. The weather man said it was going to be crappy. We took advantage of it and went to the park before the sun turned the slides into fanny toasters. The little kids and I were the only ones at the toddler park for quite a while so I could push them on the swings and let them slides down the slides as much as they wanted. We went last weekend when the weather was like mid-July and there was a waiting line for the toddler swings. Other times the park attracts tweens and teenagers who run around like bulls in a china shop, and it is time to go. We played out the toddler park and headed over to another area where the slides are longer and there are tunnels to crawl through. It is a grade school kid park but they both love it and if it is not too populated then we usually stay. I brought my book in hopes that I could read for just a minute but that's just dreaming - never going to happen. I get out there and play with them in all the areas. It is fun and for safety too because there are gaps in the play structure so that the bigger kids can swing out and do stuff like the overhand ladder thingy - which seemed like fun until it turned into exercise in gym class. Remember the President's Fitness Test? You had to run the 800 or what ever it was and do push-ups and sit-up and for girls, hang from the bar with your chin above it? Not a fun week in gym. I remember there was this girl Lisa who was pretty short compared to the rest of us and she could hang up there for well over a minute. It seemed the smaller you were the better you did at that one. My friend Amy, who was really tall could only hang for 12 seconds. Me, about 40 seconds was my max.
Anywho, I climb through the tunnels behind my kids and we go down the slides together. Okay, well it is more like, I schlep my body through the tunnel because I am just a little bit too big to do it on hands and knees and as for the slide, it is curvy and my ass drags down it at a rather modest creep. No whee for me! I think it is okay that way though. We went to one of those play places for a friend's birthday party for her little boy and I think I cracked my tailbone. I wore pants made out of a synthetic material and I went flying down the slide like a greased pig and skidded a couple of feet on the crash mat. Bumpity bumpity went my rumpity.

So I am the only adult playing on the structure until this charming man with a British accent gets on with his two little boys. The story isn't even about him, but rather about this pack of three kids there having a picnic with their grandma. They are so excited to have a big kid on the structure that they flock to me like flies on stink. At first I don't really notice it but they keep inserting themselves between my kids and I, which I don't like. My little boy is too little to be on this stuff by himself and I need to be free and clear of and from other children when I am taking him down the slide and by the gaps. I move so that they can play where they are and we have space to play on the other side. Except they move with us. The oldest is a girl about 7 or so. And wearing a T-shirt with Pull-Ups and no pants or underwear. Her little butt cheeks were hanging out the sides of her Pull-Ups which couldn't have felt nice. I originally thought she was wearing them over her shorts to provide a better sliding fabric but that was not the case. The next was a boy somewhat younger, maybe 5 or so and the youngest another girl at around 4. I had my kids go through the tunnel to go back over to the slide when I heard them following us and then felt some one's face in my butt. I forgive a little bit of this stuff because I imagine in her excitement that she has no concept of personal space. We head up the slide and she is practically pushing me and has nudged my daughter out of her way so she can be right behind me. She ends up going down the slide with her feet in my hair because I have to lay down to go down this slide. I ask her nicely to let my daughter be right behind me and not to be so close that her feet are on me. We continue to play and it doesn't get any better. Her head is up my butt so far I am sure she can smell what I had for breakfast. This is so bizarre! I even lose the niceness in my tone and the asking quality the next time I speak to her. Grandma finally tunes in and asks them to back off. I wish she would have told them to butt out, but apparently she couldn't see what was happening. They basically then are just watching to see where we are headed so that they can get there first. The next time we head through a tunnel I pick my feet up a little bit so that they provide a bit of a barrier and natural discouragement from breathing up my britches. All I can think of at this point is a joke that my friend told me yesterday:
Papa Mole sticks his head out of his hole and says, "I smell honey." Momma Mole sticks her head out of the hole and says, "I smell maple syrup." Baby Mole tries to poke his head out of the hole and says, "Can you move? All I smell is molasses."