Park Bombers

Ahhhh, school's out for the kids and the June Gloom fog burned off to reveal a blue sky screaming "Park Day!" It's been a while, I must embarrassingly admit, since I've taken them to the park. This has been a tough quarter, at school four days a week, sometimes more. But I felt ready to go let them run around and perhaps sneak in a few chapters of my first summer leisure read :) yay!

But, of course, Ashlyn wanted to swing, which requires me to get off the bench and push. Maybe I would try to read while pushing, but on better thought I told myself "This is their time, I can read later." And then, sure enough, the girl who stole Ashlyn's first choice swing began engaging in typical child banter. Quickly I learned she was NOT a little girl, but a four year old. Along with so many other useful tidbits of information I feigned much excitement over, while I thought deeply about what lay ahead in the next page of that book. I was only in six chapters, a tease.

"See how I pump my legs. Yea, I don't even need a push, because look how fast they go, because I push them out early, you see. Look at me, look how fast I'm going," said the annoyingly sweet little girl with too-short bangs and a proud smile.

"Wow, that's really cool," I said, with as much enthusiasm as I could bare to muster up for someone who I was NOT related to.

"I've already been to kindergarten," she says.

"Great. Good for you," I said, not realizing until now that the math doesn't add up if she's only four, but I never really cared for math all that much.

Ashlyn began to slip off the seat, so I grabbed it to slow down and she went flying off, plopping in the sand. Oops. I'm a little out of practice.

Yes, I get to read my book now. So I sat down on my bench, and the woman on the bench next to me tells me how cute the kids are.

"Thanks," I said, sighing, preparing for another unwanted conversation.

"Yes, so cute! I'm here with my grand-daughter. See her, over there. She's so gifted. I saw your daughter, how old is she? Three? Well, you have to take her to the dance studio down the street. You just have to. They have all these great classes that she can take, and they only enroll twice a year, that way she can be in the big recital in June," she said, as if she were going to get commission from this referral.

"Thanks, maybe when she turns four," I said, and then stared at my lap, to the book eagerly awaiting my attention.

"I forgot my book," she said, forcing more conversation. "My grand-daughter takes piano on Fridays, and then Tennis on Wednesdays, so she doesn't have time to do dance anymore. But it's a great studio. You should take her in, just to look around, if anything. She'd really love it. I know she would."

And so I continued with her as much as I could tolerate, sneaking in a paragraph here and there, in between telling the children not to play in the mud or dip their wet shoes in the sand. After her fourth or fifth endorsement for the local dance company, I decided it was best to give a five minute warning call to the kids, and get out of there. Oh yea, it was dinner time anyways, I guess.

And that, my friends, is what I call getting park-bombed. Even with oversized sunglasses and book in hand, there is no avoiding it. So maybe someday, when I tell you about the little boy I made cry at the other park, you won't judge me.