A Barefoot Day: Swine Flu Pit

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Swine Flu Pit

The Swine Flu Pit is what John and I call the indoor playground in the mall. We used to walk by there in total judgement of everyone in there.

This is what we saw: kids jumping record heights off the equipment, preforming some sort of wrestling move, while moms (just like me) lined the observation booths NOT observing their kids, rather their phones.

Naturally, we made some sort of unspoken pact that we would never ever take our kids there. The pact was broken today. Burl had been to the SFP before. My mom took him there a while ago and raved about how much fun he had. Today being sporadically stormy, super-duper hot, and not very conducive to outside play, I took him.

My mom was right. He thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Cushioned crap to play on (lined with swine flu germs, I'm sure)

Tunnels to go through

Slides to fall down

Cars to drive

Kids to watch

Room to roam

Already a hard sell myself, I knew that I would be in total judgement of everyone there. I was determined to be the cool mom that wasn't on her iPhone checking updates. But, being almost 6 months pregnant, I knew I wasn't going to do any wrestling jumps off the slide. Maybe next time.

Here's what I found:

First, I was one of a handful of moms there. Most of them seemed pretty interactive with their kids, which made me feel better about the whole situation. There were several grandparents. One lady who was very sweet to me when I had a question about the shoe policy...Burl being the only one in shoes. What is it about kids that they love to take their shoes off? Love that.

Second, there was also the grandfather there. He had balloons wrapped around his wrist so they wouldn't float away. Burl quickly spotted ~~him~~ the balloons, and went to the man. I could see the interaction from where I sat and decided to let Burl handle himself on this one. He walked up to Gramps and did his point and grunt towards the balloon. He got no response. Only the head bobbing back and forth as the man dozed off.

I like that he had enough sense to wrap the balloons on his wrist so not to float away while he napped, but I have to wonder: who's watching the kids?

Third thing that I LOVED about the SFP was that there were several people from varying ethnic groups playing with their kids. Is that the PC way of saying that? Anyways, being a middle-class white girl, I loved that I wasn't in the majority. White people love being the only white person around. It's a fact. Look it up HERE.