The Swings

The picture of Baby K above is of her in her very favorite swing of all time. It's meant to be used by disabled children but our little girl LOVES it because she can climb up into it all on her own.

Our Baby K is such a goofball. Over the past several weeks the weather in our neck of the woods has been so beautiful. On the days that are warm and sunny, I try to take Baby K to the park. She LOVES going to the playground. But I have to admit, my intentions for taking her to the park have not been purely selfless.

You see, ever since Daylight Savings Time (which I think is stupid stupid stupid), Baby K has had a very hard time adjusting to a slightly altered schedule. The main concern is that she really has struggled to take her regular naps. Many days she has just been skipping her naps all together. On the days she refuses to take a nap she will go to bed easily at night. Sounds great, right? WRONG. Although she goes to bed easily at night, she will almost inevitably wake up at about 2:00 am thinking she just finished nap time. Then she refuses to go back to bed until about 6:00 am. Needless to say, this whole situation makes for one VERY tired and unhappy Momma.

Anyway. So I decided that it would be a good idea to get her out to the park as often as possible in the hopes that she would play so much that all her energy would be spent and she would again return to having regular naps. Boy was I wrong. Baby K does love to go to the park. But she doesn't love to run around, climb up and down the slides, run around on the jungle gym, or use almost any of the other equipment that would require physical exercise.

What did she fall in love with instead? The swings. When we take her to the park she will happily allow us to push her in the swing for a solid 2 hours. She cannot even be enticed away from the swing by the sandbox! And that's really saying something considering the fact that when a swing isn't around, she loves to play in the dirt. Seriously. My silly goose of a daughter completely thwarted my selfish plot! She picked the one thing at the park that requires her to burn almost no energy whatsoever.

I still take her to the playground at least twice a week though. Pushing her on the swing for hours on end is worth it to hear her giggle and then tell me "Ready! Set! Go!!!" so that I will push her as high as I can. When she gets going really high like that she squeals at the top of her little girl voice "Wheeeeee!!!!" It makes me smile every time.