Sliding at Midnight

Yesterday, Andrew had a rough day and we didn't get to go to the park. We also got a bit thrown off of our usual schedule by some of the fuss and ended up eating dinner pretty late. By that time, though, he'd come around to his usual sweet and charming self, and when he mentioned as we were cleaning up that he was being good now, we all wholeheartedly agreed. And then he said, "So now we can put on our sunglasses and go to the park."

It wasn't really midnight, of course, but it was after 8:00. It was full dark outside. And I started to say that we'd go to the park in the morning, but Tori cocked her head and said softly, "Or...we could put on our sunglasses and go to the park."

Someone raised that kid right.

My contemplation lasted just about as long as it took me to say, "I...guess we could." Fifteen minutes later, we were piling out of the car onto a dark, quiet playground and the kids were giggling like it was the biggest adventure of their lives, talking in those half-hushed tones that people unconsciously adopt in the dark. And we did, in fact, wear our sunglasses.

Okay, we had to stick a little closer to those little people sliding in the dark, and maybe a few of us got a little wet on the equipment...but it was almost jammie time, anyway, so that didn't matter. We only stayed about twenty minutes--the whole adventure from door to door only took about 35--but Andrew is still talking about "park in the dark", and I think I may be feeling a children's book coming on.