What else can you do when the playground slide is wet?

So my kids woke up super early this morning, before the crack of dawn. I got them dressed and ready for school remarkably fast after I promised we could stop by and play on the playground on our walk to school.

Our neighborhood just built a pretty epic new playground and it’s just a few blocks away. This is what it looks like.

The new epic playground in our neighborhood. Designed for KIDS aged 5-8...

Of note, this playground has a clear sign that says the age is intended for kids 5–12 years old. This will have relevance soon, I promise.

So, it had rained the night before and the playground was a little wet. Since the sun had just come up and the rest of the world was at home sleeping, we were the first ones here and I was going to have to address this problem on my own. I looked in the pockets and underneath our double stroller, hoping I might have something that could suffice as a towel to dry off the slides so the kids wouldn’t get too wet before I dropped them off. Of course, there was nothing there that would work except for that spare clean pair of Spiderman underwear that my son will likely need at school that day (he is in the midst of potty training). What’s a mom to do?

I have a few choices, right? 1) Break my promise of a fun morning at the playground and wake up the neighborhood when I leave with two screaming children, or 2) Take one for the team and go down the slide first to dry it off. Clearly the former would result in tyranny, and the latter was the way to go, so that is what I did.

For the record, this is the slide I went down.

The slide I went down for my children...the BIG one.

No, not the small one. That really large steep one. Go big or go home, right? As you can guess, this did not end well for me.

I FLEW down this thing faster than any waterslide I ever remembered as a child. I hit my the side of my head on that twisty part up at the top and then shot off the bottom of the slide like a rocket. Like really, multiple feet in the air at the end of that slide. I thought I was dying. I can’t exactly recall what happened but somehow I ended up with the rubber “burn” marks on both knees, both elbows, and my chin. I thought for a moment I might seriously black out.

Post-experience side note: okay so this doesn’t look quite as bad as I remember it feeling and I have either overdramatized it in my head or that playground tire stuff on the ground is actually really great if kids fall! But really the worst pain is from that twisty part of the slide where I bumped my head…and now 8 hours later I’m having trouble chewing because my jaw hurts so much…

Back to the story: And then I remembered…the CHILDREN! They were right behind me! So I had to get up immediately to catch the children as they also FLEW off of the slide at a remarkable rocket speed. Thankfully I caught them and they were not only fine but thought that was the sweetest “waterslide” ever, though even they thought they may not want to go down it again. Then I had to go lie down on the nearby picnic table bench for a few minutes because I thought I might pass out from an immediate throbbing headache and the burning sensation on all of my limbs.

Thankfully we were the only souls on the playground at this hour so no one witnessed my epic mom failure. Eventually I walked the kids to school slowly and painfully, wearing my wet clothes of course, and with the kids badgering me to “go faster, mom!!”. And only when washing my son’s hands at school and staring back at the reflection of black tire marks on my chin and my wet clothes as he started singing “top and bottom, top and bottom, in between, in between, rub your hands together, rub your hands together, rinse them clean!” did I find the whole situation comical. But not before. The things we do for our children!

Here is what I have learned from this experience. 1) Playgrounds are for kids, people, not adults!! 2) It never occurred to me that the upper age limit signs applied to me…maybe we need better signage on the dangers here?!? I can't be the first person this has happened to! 3) Bring a towel anywhere you go with kids. There are just SO many good uses for a towel! 4) Sometimes I’m a supermom in my head, and a bit of a klutz in reality. And finally, 5) Maybe I should consider locking my kids in their room until the sun comes up???

There are probably more lessons to learn here…your suggestions are appreciated!