Playing Around Can Knock You Down!

There are times in a woman’s life, especially when she is in a relationship with a man who has been seriously linked to another woman, a link that resulted in a child, when she starts to wonder if all the old feelings for that ex are dead and gone. That’s what my first thought was when I heard Jesse say that Niles couldn’t have his daddy.

I knew it was crazy; Jesse is only a kid so he doesn’t know who his words could translate in ‘normal’ conversation. I mean, I know he meant that Niles’ dad was in a criminal so he was technically without a father figure right now. I know that Jesse doesn’t quite understand that Josh wouldn’t be a father to Niles just because of this fact. But still, that insecure little voice inside my head started with the ‘what ifs’.

I hated feeling insecure, I really did. It didn’t make any sense because I knew how Josh felt about me and how he felt about Carol; how many times does the man need to tell me that he made a mistake when he married her? Yes, he’s happy that he has Jesse, he wouldn’t change that part but he’s admitted that he never really loved her.

When I looked at Josh and he turned to smile at me, I must have shown some sign on my face of the thoughts I was having because his smile seemed to falter a little. Without saying a word, he reached over, picked my hand off my lap. When I raised a brow in his direction, he smiled fully once again as he brought my hand over to rest it on his lap. Not once during the rest of the drive to the playground did he remove his hand, or wipe that smile off his face. It was just what I needed to stop myself from going over to the ‘crazy girlfriend’ dark side.

There are three playgrounds in my town – two are kinds of small and they don’t have too much stuff and then there’s the one that we went too, Lyon’s Park. Lyon’s Park has been the playground of choice for years, I remember spending many afternoon’s there with my mom when I was a little kid and then with Mary and the girls when I lived with them; it was always a happy place for me. I guess you could say, and sound very lame in doing so, that being at that park make me feel like a kid again.

Josh pulled into the parking area of the park and that’s when Jesse really started to bounce around; it was almost as if he suddenly was injected with pure sugar, he was ready to be unleashed unto the playground equipment. “Jesse go play now!” He called out to his dad the second Josh stopped the car. “Ama we go play now!”

“Just hold on a second,” Josh told him as he shut off the car before getting out to open the back door to help him out of his seat.

But Jesse was ten steps in front of Josh; he managed to get himself free from his seat without help. “We go play now daddy!” He got on his hands and knees onto the floor of the car and started to back out the door.

“Will you wait a second?” Josh laughed as he grabbed Jesse around the waist and picked him up. Josh held Jess back against his chest and asked him what daddy’s playground rules were.

“Stay with daddy all times,” Jess stated and then added, “And Ama!”

“That’s right,” Josh chuckled. “Stay with daddy and Anna at all times, no running off by yourself.” Jesse wiggled to get down but Josh held him tight. “What other rules are there?”

“Jesse no talk to stranges!”

“Right, and?”

“And?” Jess’ little brow crinkled as he thought. Finally he held his hands up at shoulder height and told Josh he didn’t know.

“Have fun!” Josh exclaimed as he buried his face against Jess’ neck and blew, making a ‘farting’ sound which totally cracked Jesse up.

Once Josh put Jesse down, Jesse took off up the hill that led to the entrance of the park. “Jesse!” Josh called out but I was already running after him.

“Hey you!” I caught up to him in no time, he was just a kid after all and I was a really out of shape adult, and we were going up hill. “What do you want to do first?”

“We go on teetot Ama! And slide and swing. Daddy say that he push up Ama! We can go real high!” Just watching Jesse as he spoke and ran was so cute; his little arms were flying through the air from his excitement.

We got to the top of the hill and stopped for a moment to gaze around the park. It was a pretty nice day out, I thought there would be loads of people in the park but it was really deserted. Shocked but totally happy about it, I glanced down at Jess. “Ok sweetie, let’s go play!”

Once again we took off, I started to the ‘teetot’ because that’s were he said he wanted to start. “Over here Ama!” He had stopped to call out to me. I stopped, asked him what he was doing and you know what he did? He giggled and took off towards the slides!

“Oh you better run!” I jokingly called out as I headed in his direction.

We had climbed up the steps and were ‘debating’ which slide to take when Josh and Lindsay finally caught up to us. “What happened to you two?” Jess and I peeked out over the side of the slide platform.

“We were getting some stuff from my car,” Josh showed me a small cooler; I asked him what he had in there. “Just some water and juice,” he told me. “It should be enough till we head out.”

“Ama?” Jesse was tugging on my shorts. When I asked him what, he told me that he wanted to go down the ‘daddy’ slide. The slide set that Lyon’s Park has isn’t one of those new plastic ones. It’s older than me, I swear and it’s metal. There were three slides, ‘baby’, ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’ – the ‘baby’ one was two feet shorter height wise than the other two and about two feet shorter at the bottom than the ‘daddy’ one, the ‘mommy’ one was about a foot shorter at the bottom than the ‘daddy’ one. “Daddy wait at bottom, otay?”

I helped Jesse step up to the platform for the bigger slides and hand in hand, we made our way pass ‘mommy’ to ‘daddy’. “Ama sit down and Jess sit down too!” I sat down on the platform and held out my hands to Jesse. Once he was securely seated on my lap, I moved onto the slide and then, after making sure I was really holding on to him, I pushed off and away we went; speeding towards Josh.

“WEEEEEEEE!” Jesse squealed all the way down.

I’ve never slid with someone in my lap before and it wasn’t until I was almost at the bottom that I realized this. Normally when I slid by myself, I would fall onto the ground or hop off and do a half mile run across the park until my body realized it was time to stop moving. I had no freaking idea how I was supposed to stop with Jess in my arms.

In my most graceful move ever, when I reached the bottom, I managed to propel myself forward. We smacked into Josh and landed in a heap in the sand at the bottom. The only sound was the hysterical laughter coming from Lindsay as she sat on a blanket near by with a camera documenting every second of that wondrous trip of mine.

“Owie!” Jesse cried out from between our bodies.

I never jumped so quickly in all my life. “Oh my God!” My hands were on Jess’ arms and legs, checking him for broken bones, cuts, bruises or anything that shouldn’t be there. “I didn’t mean to hurt you Jesse.”

Jesse didn’t care for what I was saying; he jumped up and started running for the slides again. “Come Ama!”

“I’m coming Jesse,” I started to get up but Josh grabbed hold of my arm, tugging me down next to him.

“If you wanted me on my back Anna, there are easier ways to do it,” if it wasn’t for the laughter in his eyes, I would’ve thought I hurt him.

We spent about two hours at the park that night and boy was I tired when we all got into Josh’s car to leave. I was sitting back with my eyes closed when Josh leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. He told me that they had fun, “but now we are hungry. Where did you want to go?”

It was late, I wasn’t really in the mood for anything big and since it was getting close to Jesse’s bedtime, we decided to head down to Sawyer’s Takeout for some greasy but oh so yummy food - homemade fries, dressing and gravy! – to take back to Josh’s.

Lindsay and Jess were at the table waiting for Josh and I, we were in the kitchen dishing out the food. “Good thing we spent lots of time at the park,” I told Josh. “This is going to go directly to my bum!”

Josh made a show of checking out my bum and then he smiled at me. “I can think of other ways to work off the food later, if you like.”

“Maybe,” was all I said to him as I turned to the kids at the table, “supper is served!”