Extreme Makeover: Playground Edition

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Today, the turkeys and I, along with our neighbor, Amber (she’s 8 years old) went to the park to burn off some of their energy ride their new bikes and enjoy the beautiful Arizona morning.

Before I get to the point of this post, first, I have to say that my next purchase must be a bike, because those little buggers are fast and I was totally that mom half jogging around the lake in the park screaming, “Slow down, wait!  Do not go one inch further or we are going HOME!”  My next purchase will be a gym membership, because, well just because.

As we pulled into the park, and unloaded the bikes, I noticed that a cover had been installed over the playground area.

“Sweet,” I thought to myself, “it’s about dang time.  Now we can come here and not have to worry about getting scalded on the equipment that has been baking in the sun all day long.”

Wrong.

Not only did they cover the playground area, but the entire area itself had undergone a makeover.  Think Extreme Makeover:  Playground Edition.

Extreme Makeover is known for being, well, extreme.  In my previous lifetime, when I viewed the show (only the Home Edition, mind you, not the body, lipo, botox one), I often thought to myself, “Wow.  All this stuff they are doing is so awesome, but I wonder how functional it really is for the family, in the long run.”  I mean a good chunk of those designers don’t even have children but yet create a crazy amazing bedroom that the kid will be sick of in 3 months and want to change.

The brilliant people who re-designed this playground are clearly cut from the same mold as the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition designers.  I need to give you a visual for you to truly understand.

This was a very nice park, had a couple of slides, some swings, perfect.  Boys loved it.  I could sit on the bench and watch them play.  We could take walks around the lake, feed the ducks; it was the perfect park.

Was the perfect park.

Whose bright idea was this contraption?  This thing was so ridiculous.  It was made of rope.  Rope.  My 4 1/2 year old boys gave it the old college try but after getting stuck at the top for the bazillionth time, requiring me to move my ass from the bench, I decided it was time to move on.  I mean, if this was just an addition to the playground area, then it could be ok.  But it wasn’t.  This was the central focus.  It appeared as though there is only one other mechanism for the childrens to play on and it was under construction.  Check out this  merry go round on crack.

Thankfully, this particular park has another play area.  Surely, they must have left the more traditional, safer, less mommy-can-you-help-me type stuff on this one.

Nope.

Apparently, the swings that we knew and loved whilst growing up are a thing of the past.  Nary a swing was to be found at either of the playground.  Well, they did have the baby swings, but that was it.  These suckers replaced the good old fashioned swings, you know, the ones where you actually have to pump your legs.

Extreme Makeover: Playground Edition equals a failure of epic proportions.  Epic.

Do you have any playgrounds on crack in your area?  I would love to hear about them in the comments or on facebook!

~Andrea