At the Playground with Austen and Adler

Today after work, Tom headed to his weekly softball game while I picked up Austen from daycare and then we walked Adler. Austen loves playgrounds. In fact, you can't pass by one without him whining. Since he can't really talk that well yet, I'm assuming he's saying "Stop, now! I want to go in there!" as he leans as far out of his stroller as possible and points to the giant slide.

Now I'm not a mean mom who deprives her kid of the fun things in life, but usually if Tom's not with me, I don't stop at the playground. It's too difficult if there are other kids at the playground to try to keep a hold of Adler and keep up with my now very adventurous 18-month old.

But today, we passed the playground and no one was there so I stopped. Adler ran around off-leash and I climbed up on the playground equipment with Austen and sent him down the slide (only the little ones by himself). He was having a great time, but Adler was very anxious about Austen playing at the playground - she was running around frantically trying to prevent him from getting hurt - meeting him at the end of the slide and trying to herd him as he ran around the playground and tried to climb up on the jungle gym by himself. I was amazed at how protective she was of him. She even gave a little growl when I accidentally ran into her as she was moving full speed ahead trying to get to the bottom of the slide before Austen did.

I bet if Adler had kids, she would have been a very protective mother.