Five Hours

Benjamin and I headed to the park...to the park fairly close to his house...one of the days we were there at the beginning of January.  It was a gorgeous day...absolutely beautiful. 

He asked me if I could do this...can't remember what he called it, but he kept demonstrating how to do it on one side.  This came on the heels of our discussion of winking.

I wish I'd taken a picture of his winking.  Priceless!  I told him I couldn't wink and he would demonstrate and then tell me I just needed to practice!

 There was one 6 year old boy there that asked Benjamin if he wanted to play.   Benjamin is a bit shy around people he doesn't know...and so he was with this little guy. 

 He had a remote-controlled helicopter that he was asking Benjamin if he wanted to play with...Benjamin was intrigued...but shy... He told the boy that he had a remote controlled car...and all about it, but he wasn't taking the bait for the helicopter.

 The boy was persistent....and Benjamin finally began to play with him and his helicopter.  They had a blast and probably played for about an hour!  I enjoyed watching all this...and ended up spending a lot of time visiting with this little guys mom. 

 When they left, Benjamin and I wandered over to the playground we had originally been heading for. 

 

  He told me he wished Emerson were there...

He was wanting to go up the slide...the big slide...but there were a LOT of kids there, running up and down the stairs, whooping and hollering, having a grand time.  It was actually a lot of kids from a day-care type place.  Well, Benjamin was not wanting to get in the middle of all of them.  I kept encouraging him to go on and just join them. 

He held back...

Eventually, we ventured over to a different part of the same play area but it had less kids.  Not a lot less, but they weren't as rowdy.  He went right up the steps to get to the slide...but then came back down the steps...not sure of all the kids storming into the opening where you came down the slide.  He'd watch a while, then start up...

There was an alternate way up which was inside the 'trunk'...with a rope ladder to climb.  He really wanted to climb that, but was a bit hesitant.  Kids were dashing in and out...

I just continued to encourage him...

 Finally...I saw him go in the stair area that led up...

and down he came.  That's all it took...just one time, and then he joined right in with the others, jockeying for position to slide down...coming down laughing and ready to keep going.

 His sunglasses were cracking me up.  He kept them on the entire time.  They weren't fitting exactly on his nose, but he wore them anyway.  The sun was VERY intense and bright that day!  (I loved it!)

 After his initial slide, he was all over the playground...

 He decided he wanted to slide down the pole... I told him I'd help him at first.  He was pretty high up and you have to reach out to grab the pole...but he didn't hesitate...down he came...about 10 times!

 Next thing I knew, he was going inside the trunk to climb up to slide...

From there, he took off running toward the original slides he wanted to come down.  Up he went without any hesitation.....

We took a break and sat at a table and ate granola bars...and he was ready to play some more...

Five hours after arriving, he finally decided he was ready to go home.  I don't remember what time he went to bed that night, but he had definitely had a full day of fun and play!