Pieces

It's hard to believe that this mass of pieces strewn over - rather, placed carefully in, knowing my husband - our backyard will become a rather enormous playset. My husband says it will be gi-normous. I've never seen it put together, so I have to take his word for it. And that of my 11yo son, who helped take it down and put it in our backyard.

This all started years ago, when Glen and I debated over a playset for our children. We weren't sure what to do, since our kids had gotten older since we left our metal swingset in Florida. We finally saved up our money, and settled on the largest playset we could afford. According to our children, it was too small, and wouldn't be any fun. But after it was set up, they played and played and played on it last summer and the first part of this summer.

Then tragedy struck while the children and I were enjoying a day at Six Flags - a tree fell on our playset. Our neighbor's tree. The estimate to repair the set would cost half of what it cost us initially. We debated and debated, and with a very busy summer, did nothing.

"Go outside!" I would tell the children.

"The only thing we like to do outside is swing!" they would tell me (quite a change from the 'it's too small' cry of the year before).

Then, last week, a friend called. A client of her husband's landscaping business had offered them his super-deluxe Rainbow play set. "Just get it out of here - my kids are done with it," he said.

"It's too large for our backyard, and I know a tree fell on your playset so I thought of you." My husband was out of town, but I was more than willing to commit him to tearing it down and bringing it here. (Poor guy)

I recruited help, since both our fathers are recovering from surgery and couldn't help. Bob, Jon and Michael came Saturday morning. I don't think they knew what they were getting into, but they came anyway (bless you!). My dad and Chris loaned us their pick-ups, and off the men and Nathaniel caravaned to get the gi-normous playset.

So, by Saturday afternoon, the pieces were laid out in our backyard, waiting for another Saturday of work to put it back together. Nathaniel tells me we can have 11 children swinging on this playset at one time. Quite a change from our little 4 person set. I can hardly believe the blessing - neither can the kids. We are so thankful - and can't wait until we can invite friends over to play and play and play.

Although 6yo Isaac says he's going to start a business by charging kids $5 to play. I thought that was a little steep, but he says he's saving to buy a Lego DeathStar playset. "This is a great idea, Mom, to have my own business so I can earn money!"

Hm. Not exactly what I was thinking...