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Luke at the playground

Luke is pretty sure that he doesn't really need me at the playground anymore. After all, there are all these other kids running around without their moms trailing them, right? He can walk, he no longer puts the mulch in his mouth, he should be set!

Today he crawled up on the "little kids" play structure at the park. He found the slide, and I arrived at the top of the slide just as he was starting down it, so he didn't hurt himself too much or go too fast. This may have been a problem, since then he wanted to climb up the slide. I directed him to the steps, which he climbed up. He then wanted to go down the slide again. He got the whole routine down pretty well.

Then he started exploring the structure: there is a bridge, a tic tac toe board (with 9 cylinders each with an x, o and a blank), a window for looking at your mom, 2 other slides, and plenty of drops to get next to, so that you can scare your mother. I was desperately running around to catch him if he fell, but for all his exploring, he really never went close to the edges.

The time came to leave the park, and he was out of reach. I really didn't want to climb up on the play structure to get him, so I took a graham cracker out of my pocket and waved it where he could see it to get his attention. Then I went to the ladder and reached towards him with the graham cracker. He followed it right into my arms. He wasn't even too sad about leaving, since he had something yummy to eat. We had a good time.

Eleanor didn't: she fell off the rings for the first time in a long time. She was showing off, skipping a ring as she went across, and she landed on her back. She recovered after a motrin and some time to catch her breath. She also seemed generally cheerful, except for riding her bike off the driveway into the ditch (off a 1.5 foot drop) and scraping her legs... She said that this was the first time her bike made her do a trick. She had a tough day.
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