Woodchips In My Shoes? It Must be Spring

It’s beginning to look a lot like spring time!  Otherwise known around here as that time of year when the temperature starts climbing and you feel like getting outside but the pools aren’t open yet. 

At this time of year, sometimes it feels like the only outdoor activity that I can come up with is going to a park. I imagine when parents of typical children choose a park to visit, their criteria is along the lines of which is the closest to stroll to from their manses, pushing perambulators along tree-lined lanes while their sun-kissed moppets laugh and skip along the way. OK, I might have a slightly idyllic notion of what life is like with typical children.

When I choose a park to take my autistic daughter to, I have other considerations in mind:

1. SPF Factor: If there is no shade to be had, my daughter is likely to prostrate herself on the ground within five minutes and demand to go home. She refuses to go down a slide or sit on a swing that has been baking in the sun.  What, she’s never heard of skin grafts?
2. Proximity to baseball diamonds/soccer fields/basketball courts/etc.: She has this adorable little thing that she does where she runs out into the middle of games in progress, takes the ball and runs away. The kids love it!
3. Water Hazards: I’ll bet parents of typical children have no idea how many parks are near bodies of water. I know this because I have to constantly hold my daughter back from running headlong into them. She also is fairly obsessed with geese and ducks, and where there is water there are geese and ducks. If we visit parks near water, the play structures are ignored in favor of chasing birds, which results in the carpets of my car being covered in an enchanting mélange of crushed Cheerios and goose droppings.
4. Degree of Difficulty: My daughter has the gross motor skills of a just-hatched chick (and, by the way, she’s just as cute), but sometimes she’s tempted to try to keep up with the other children and wants to try some of the more challenging apparatus. This can be quite harrowing for me and, if I want to avoid climbing up the rock-wall-to-nowhere to retrieve her, it’s best that I steer clear of certain parks.

With that in mind, I would like to bestow my First Annual Parks & Recreation Awards. The Parky's, as they are known only to me, mean absolutely nothing, as the field from which I chose was limited to parks that I’ve actually visited.  I thought I’d been to a lot of parks until I checked the Downers Grove Park District website and saw that there are like 93 of them. So feel free to set me straight or nominate others that could give these worthy parks a run for their money:

The “What, Are You Trying to Kill Us?” Award for the most confounding piece of playground equipment.
Winner: Hummer Park (see photo)
Honorable Mentions: Any parks that have slides which are accessible via those web-o-rope thingies.

The 5 Pitchforks Up Award goes to the park with the highest heat index.
Winner: Washington Park
I haven’t been there since the renovation, but unless they covered the entire thing with a tent I'm betting it’s still the champ.

The Ahhhh Award goes to the park with the most shade. 
Winner: Randall Park

The Park Most Likely to Make You Want to Crate Your Children When They Turn 13 Award goes to the park with more teenagers than toddlers occupying the baby swings. 
Winner: Fishel Park

The Gamus Interruptus Award goes to the park(s) in which my daughter has taken someone else’s ball and gone home.
Winners: It’s a five-way tie between Washington Park, Randall Park, Gilbert Park, McCollum Park and Memorial Park.

The “It’s Not Supposed to Bend That Way” Award  to the park where my daughter broke her arm.
Winner: Constitution Park
Honorable Mention:  The smoking hot paramedics and firefighters that came to her aid. I know that they're not parks, but it’s my award show, so suck it. 

The La-Z-Boy Award for having those big green recliner-like swings that even my fat keester can still fit into.
Winner: McCollum Park

The Golden Turd Award goes to the park with the most goose poop per square inch.
Winner: Patriots Park/Barth Pond
Honorable Mention: Hummer Park

Woo hoo! It's just not spring until I've screamed the words "Don't walk behind the swings!," scraped doody off of my shoe with a wood chip, or called the po-po to clear the Goth kids out of a tube slide.

Congratulations to all the winners. And happy Spring to all!