Structurally Unsound

While so many, many things in my life could be considered structurally unsound (like the fact that we're essentially homeless), this post will share the joys (?) of finding playgrounds in Paris.

 

My wonderful friend Heather travelled to France last summer with her daughter and told us about a hidden gem playground behind Notre Dame cathedral.  We duly stumbled upon it the other day, to the delight of the girls.  Notice how my husband's new wardrobe makes him look like the kids' bodyguard.  I wonder if people think I'm some diplomat's wife, out for a stroll with our two pampered children and Serge, the Security Agent.

Nah, I'm sure they just peg us as American tourists.

The entertaining part of these playgrounds is how not-American they are.  Sometimes you have to pay.  Sometimes they're full of English and Italian kids.  Sometimes they're wildly dangerous, to my eyes.

Case in point--the interesting merry-go-round we saw.  Kids are always reckless on these, to my vertigo-fear-based eyes.  I get dizzy because the tiny hairlike structures in my inner ears decide to move on their own (or the fluid they're in thickens or the tiny rock-like inclusions in said fluid move).  Whatever the reason, uncontrolled dizziness is a problem for the women in my family.

I know this about myself, I admit it.  There!  I admit it.  As a result, I'm the "Don't spin so much" Nazi to my kids.  I know I make them stop too early on merry-go-rounds.  But in my defense, they've got my genes, so they might get vertigo someday.  Plus Helena is weirdly, intermittently susceptible to motion sickness.  Sometimes she can be in the car for 10 hours and be fine.  Other times, she'll get carsick after and eight minute drive.

But let's go back to the merry-go-round.  After pushing it around, a boy fell, getting trampled by two other boys, then appeared to be stuck.  The short version of the story is that this kid's sneaker was wedged under the bottom of the metal.  It took two adults about 90 seconds to free him.  The kid was pretty patient with the whole thing, no panicking or crying to be seen, but I'd have been tremendously annoyed if one of my daughters had been trapped under that hunk of metal.

The spinning drums are another great play-on toy you'd never see back home.  We watched as two girls, ages about seven or eight, got these bad boys spinning rapidly.  My girls gave them a try with much less success.  Helena couldn't even get on while Olivia could get on, but couldn't do much more than a slow grocery-store amble.  Perhaps when we go back, we'll practice.

The pièce de résistance was the, thankfully restricted to age 7 and older, Flinging Swing of Cranial Injury.  It's a loose translation of the French, I realize, but I belive it to be pretty accurate.  You mount a rope swing to a meandering, roughly-elliptical track that runs downhill.  Some sort of pulley system ensures smooth rides and higher velocity for maximum concussive force.  If only they could put a moat of hungry crocodiles or broken glass under it--now THAT'D be a playground toy!

Yeah, I'm a lame mom, I get it.  But I have run out of Hello Kitty band-aids already, don't judge me!