playground wars

After over a month apart, Dennis and Chloe reunited this afternoon for a play date and Christmas gift exchange at a McDonald's with an indoor playground. I knew there might be trouble when we arrived and saw a sign on the playground door announcing that the room was reserved for a birthday party. The children inside were a good bit older than Dennis and Chloe. We kept them out for nearly an hour while we ate and talked and they opened gifts, and then we sent them in to play. We'd driven a half hour each to get to this particular location with the indoor play area, and we had every intention of letting them wear each other out with vigorous play, especially after the long cold-weather-and-illness spell we've just been through. Of course no one complained. They might should have. We opted not to sit in there with them (hot, loud, need I say more?), but we sat where we could watch them through the glass. They pushed and shoved each other some, not enough to warrant intervention, but then we noticed shouting and pointing and some light shoving between them and all the bigger kids. They were holding their own, maybe even going beyond holding their own when Ellen stepped in to take a look and listen. I saw Dennis jump off the play structure while roaring at several kids, even pushing at one of the girls. Chloe and a bigger guy were shouting and waving fingers at each other, and he climbed up onto a pipe where they couldn't get to him, so Chloe and Dennis climbed up the staircase thing and yelled at him through the mesh barrier. The big kids apparently decided to block them from getting into one part of the playground, shoving them back and surrounding them, until one of their parents intervened. Then Dennis and Chloe took over that area and the bigger kids went to the other side. Our little guys did a victory dance for a second until they realized that they were alone, and that's when they decided to climb up after the big kids. A giant wad of children came out the tunnel after we sent Chloe up to fetch Dennis. He was the last one out. I'm unclear whether Chloe demanded they all get down or if they were all in Dennis' way or if they had just decided en masse to exit the structure just then. We collected our two little hotheads and took them to Walmart to shop. Dennis told us "they said we were losers and they wouldn't let us play with them. So we said THEY were the losers." I guess things escalated, but they did have a fabulous time. And they bonded together in their time of adversity as well as burned off a good bit of energy. All in all, a successful venture.

When we got home, we played Hungry Hungry Hippos (one of his gifts, a HUGE hit). I always wanted that game growing up. It IS as fun (and as loud) as it looks--I always knew it would be! Later tonight, Dennis put a pair of pants on his head and let the legs trail down over his shoulders. "Look," he said, "I'm Rapunzel!". Never a dull moment here, even when we occasionally wish for one.