January 14 – “A dizzying experience”

Well, yesterday I did something I haven’t done in a while.  I spent an hour playing on the playground.  Er, I mean, I watched as Cailyn played on the playground.  Oh, all right.  I did get “involved” just a little bit.  I started out doing the proper grandfatherly thing – I pushed her in the swing.  But when Cailyn gets into doing something she really likes, then she wants to go “really, really, really, really, really really …” (I think you get the picture) high.  I guess I just got caught up in the moment.  I had flashbacks of getting pushed in the swing so high that my pusher (yep, that’s what the word “pusher” used to mean) would actually run underneath the swing as it flew over his head.  So … I took it as a personal challenge to get the swing as high as I (safely) could.  Threw that word in as a nod to Cailyn’s Daddy.  We harped “safely” at him enough.  Of course he never seemed to need any help to do dangerous things.  Now I was wearing sandals, and the ground beneath the swing was made up of those tiny pebble things, so I couldn’t do the run under the swing approach.  Instead I chose the “stand to the side and add a push as the swing came by” approach.  It felt safer to me, kept stones out of my sandals, and still gave Cailyn the illusion of “really, really, really, etc.” fast.  OK.  So maybe it wasn’t an illusion.  She was going pretty fast. 

From there we adjourned to the playground apparatus section.  We used to call that the slides.  Except these slides aren’t like the ones we had.  Ours were tall or short and went straight from the top to the ground.  And if they were slick enough you could get going pretty fast before you literally “hit the dirt.”  But these new ones aren’t straight at all.  They twist and turn.  And when you get to the bottom you are dizzy.  Which is admittedly kind of fun in and of itself.  You know, this whole twisty slide thing has even carried over into the fire service.  One of our brand new stations was built with a twisty slide instead of the old traditional fire pole.  And after five twists on that thing I could barely walk.  There weren’t but three on the one at the playground, though.  And Cailyn went down that silly thing about a hundred times.  I even took her picture coming down so I could send it to her Mom and Dad.  Of course it required five or six “takes” to get more than just the top of her head or just her pink boots.  And then (I should have known) she insisted that it was her turn to take pictures of me coming down the slide.  Now how could I refuse that request?  It is only fair that she have a turn, right?  I had no choice.  So I climbed the maze (That’s another thing that is different.  Used to we just had to make it up that ladder.  Now you have to climb the mock rock wall and wind your way through all kinds of obstacles).  I made it to the top, though.  And she got a picture of me.  Two in fact.  She wanted me to come down a “different way.”  How different can you get on a slide that twists your body into a pretzel.  I gave it the old playground try, though.  Came down headfirst.  That was a sight to behold.  Maybe someday I’ll have enough self-esteem to post them.  For now I’ll chalk it up to a pretty cool afternoon with my granddaughter.  She probably won’t remember it, but I sure will.

Genesis 1:27-28 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’”

Father, thank you for including that amazing concept called “fun” in your plan for creation.  Amen.