Playground of Death

I'm not saying that they do things backwards in Mississippi, I'm just saying that the playground at the state park where we spent most of our time on our recent trip is perhaps in the land that time forgot. It's possible that in our over abundance of safety standards, padding and helmets for diaper changes, that we might worry a hair too much about our kiddos; but I think that the playground we went to was a might bit on the dangerous side.

I haven't seen a merry-go-round in ages. I'm pretty sure they have been yanked out of most playgrounds because they are too fun. Or, because one in two kids either falls off and chips a tooth or gets knocked unconscious. But, although I'm assured that others have seen this type of merry-go-round before, I've never seen this bucket type of merry-go-round. Seriously, a bowl? Is that so you can catch the puke in one convenient, easy to save for the next kid to sit in, location? It WAS fun anyway.

And, I'm pretty sure that bar spacing on any structure is standard for a reason. Both so kids can't fit through and so they don't try. Leave it to the one kid who's too big to fit through to try it. Yep, that's my son. He was pretty sure it looked like a good idea at the time. It didn't take long for him to rethink the decision. Hilarious after the rescue...scary for the moments he was actually stuck.

The play structures were a story in and of themselves, having been constructed sometime predating the Civil War, and therefore, I'm pretty sure a historical landmark, especially down there. When we weren't dodging the protruding screws and the rotted bits, we were making sure the metal slides weren't searingly hot from baking in the sun. But again, they were still fun...so long as we were within centimeters of Collin making sure he wasn't going to die. The ONE "newer" play structure was no better anyway, as the tippy top of it was missing the pole or ladder or whatever access to the ground it formerly had, and instead then was equipped with a ledge that dropped immediately off about twelve feet to the ground. P.S. none of these play structures were surrounded by anything softer than packed dirt.
My favorite fun thing at the playground of death, which I didn't take any pictures of, was the see-saw-roundy thing; yeah, I don't know what to call it. It was a circular ride on animal structure that bounced. There were four animals for kids to ride in the form of an X. It seemed super fun, until you took a close look at the axis and note that of the four major screws holding the thing together, two were missing and the two left were visibly loose and shook pretty wildly when we bounced. Hmmmmm. Collin thought the thing was a hoot anyway. I'm sure he would've laughed even more hysterically if one of the adults would've flown off wildly when the whole thing careened off the axis and we plummeted to our deaths into the sand bed it sat in that had been converted to a fire ant nest.

Alas, it was not a safe playground. But, it was a fun playground nonetheless. I'm pretty sure that we were not remiss in letting him play there since we at least noted the dangers lurking at every corner. I felt a little leery for the girls playing there while their mother napped in the parked car in the lot. But, hey who am I to judge? We all survived and had a good time.