Parenthood - 2014-07-10 Park-ticipate, supper visitor

July 10, 2014

We thought we'd try out the park-ticipate program again this year as Elizabeth loves any excuse to do a craft (and we enjoyed it before)

The website looked promising too, with all kinds of fun themes for each week. "Children aged 4 to 10 are invited to join our highly trained Recreation staff in this fun-filled program of crafts, games and sports". But when we arrived on the first day, their staff showed up late. Then they couldn't find parking and were unable to figure out how to let people in the park know this. So then they left again, leaving behind at least three confused parents who had called in advance to check that it was happening and their disappointed kids.

The second week the staff had parking (no idea why they couldn't just park at the edge of the park like they used to, but whatever). They welcomed us to play soccer. "Leave your kids with us and go relax" said perky staff member. There was no sign of any pirate theme as advertised. I asked about crafts. "Oh" said the staff. "We're not doing crafts this year. We want to keep the kids active for a full hour doing games and sports". Ooookaaay.... I promised Elizabeth we could do crafts at home for the second week in a row. Soccer occupied the kids for about ten minutes. Hula hoops, crab games and bubbles for another five. But then they all wanted to play on the play structure and that was that. I am not entirely clear what the city of Ottawa thinks that kids normally do in a playground without "highly trained" kids to tell them what to do... But the kids did have fun.

In the evening Adi came to visit for supper. Elizabeth was super excited. Adi was super excited. There was much giggling and whispering of secrets.