N doesn't really like parks. The playground part of them, that is. Sure, he likes to climb the steps a few times, maybe go on the swing for thirty seconds. Kind of the way he likes to play with toys for a few minutes.
What he really likes is the world. And the world's obstacles. When I look for places to play now, I am looking for hills, interesting low architectural elements, stairs, tree roots, ramps. I am looking for flowers and walls, sculptures and platforms. I walk N in his stroller until I see a likely looking place. Our favorite at the moment is a campus center at a nearby college - in the square quarter mile where we play, there are three different ramps, a half dozen staircases, a climbable newspaper rack, a fountain, a series of little cement paths making a pattern in the grass, and a steep hill with cement benches inset onto it. This area is pretty much paradise, and destroys any park equipment we've yet found for its joy-inducing power.
Occasionally we have taken N to an incredible outdoor pirate ship playground thirty minutes away in Pasadena. It's pretty amazing, and yet do we spend much time on the tipping boat, canon ball climber, crazy steppers and bridges and slides? Not really, we generally end up on the hills of grass above and below the playground, or a little ways off jumping across the picnic table benches.
Redefining what makes a great place to play has really given us a lot of fun days. We still go to the park sometimes, but most days we are to be found wandering in the wider world, in search of likely looking ramps and challenging hills.
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