BAD PARENTING: PLAYGROUND EDITION

For those of you who like Nomad Papa posts, I have another one for you. This one is about what happens when you let Nomad Mom and Nomad Papa go on the playground without adult supervision. And by adult supervision, I mean having adults that know us around to keep us from exploiting our children for their entertainment value.

Our kids love going to the park. No, scratch that, our kids love going to swing. They get an exhorbitant amount of satisfaction from sitting in a seat and letting us do all the work to propel them forward and backward.

Unfortunately, eventually our arms get tired and we have to dump the kids out of the swings and send them off to explore the other equipment. It was in this way that we learned about the crazy humor value of the spinning wheel.

I actually have no idea what the proper name is for this equipment. Spinning wheel? Spinner? Whirlythingamajig? Vomit Comet? Here is a picture to help you understand what I am talking about:

Basically, the kids sit down in the seat and we do all the work of spinning them around. (Sound familiar?)

Here is how we make our playground trips more entertaining. (Note: we are trained professional morons, so please don’t try this at home.)

Load your kid onto the spinner whirlythingamajig and start turning it. Turn it faster and faster and ignore any requests to get off. If they really complain, slow things down and start spinning in the opposite direction.

When you are completely sick of turning the damn thing and your own head is starting to spin, bring the wheel to an abrupt halt. Then rush over, grab your kid and plonk them down on the grass nearby. Now step back and watch the hilarity ensue.

Giorgie did a stumble shuffle dance before falling over into my lap. Addy wobbled a bit on the dismount, seemed to have it under control, and then turned 90 degrees and face-planted into the grass. Nomad Papa and I haven’t laughed so hard in years.

And I haven’t even told you the best part of it. When your kid does fall over and cry, you can blame them for their pseudo-injury. We like to turn it into a life lesson about why they should play on the slide and let mommy and papa sit in the shade instead of making us push the damn whirlygig. If you are really good, you can turn the tears that are streaming down your face into part of the lesson. PRICELESS!

But anyway, this is all just conceptual, because obviously we would never do that to our kids.