"Friends"

I never thought, at the ripe old age of two, that my son would understand the concept of friends. Obviously I totally underestimated him, because shortly after our arrival on Okinawa, he told me that he missed his friends. He also told me he wanted to go to school (?!?!), and when we would go to events he would ask me, "My friends gonna be there?"

So of course I was beyond thrilled when shortly after our arrival, a couple of spouses from Tommy's unit who had kids Wyatt's age decided we should form a playgroup. Our little group consists of Allison and her son Andrew, Jessica and her son Gabriel and Heather and her daughter Ashlin. All of the kids are either a month older or a month younger than Wyatt, and he loves getting together with his new friends! We get together every Tuesday and the kids have an absolute ball!

So far, we've each taken a turn hosting playgroup at our homes and we've gone to an indoor playground super-place called Round One. Round One was a huge hit with the kids - there was a big ball pit, a gun that you can load and shoot the balls out of, little cars that they can actually drive around the track, climbing courses, and tons and tons of games ranging from bowling to air hockey to drum-playing instruments and video games.

The weather has been gorgeous lately so we decided to try out the parks next. Parks in Japan are much... different.... than in the U.S. Some might say they are on the unsafe side. I like to think of them as just a little more adventurous! They are super fun but you would never find this type of equipment in the U.S. for fear of getting sued.

For example, Sunabe Baba park features basket swings and a roller slide. The basket swing is a little dangerous in that it is shaped like a very shallow basket (no leg holes), so if the child leans forward s/he might fall out. But you know what? I've never seen a kid do it twice! They learn fast. Plus, it looks way more relaxing to me than Stateside swings!

What is a roller slide, you ask? Hmm... think of the absolute biggest slide playground you've seen in the States, triple that, and then picture roller bars on the part that you "slide" down on. The object is to make you go super fast. It generally works!

The next park we tried, however, put the roller slide at Sunabe Baba to shame. This park has an absolutely HUGE roller slide - I think it is the biggest in Okinawa. You have to climb up a million sets of stairs just to get to the top, and you have to BYOC (Bring Your Own Cardboard) to slide down, or risk butt burn because it goes so fast! The adults had just as much fun as the kids at this park. Here's a video that my friend Jessica took of all of us going down the roller slide, and a picture to give you some perspective on how big it is!

Video:

Wyatt is first down the slide (of course), followed by Gabe, Ashlin, me, Allison, and Heather. Jessica is filming and... I'm not quite sure where Andrew is!

A nice complement to the roller slide here was the really fun playground equipment encompassed by sand. When the kids (okay, adults) got tired of hiking up the steps, we took a time out and let them play here:

This week we went to Uruma Area Park and I admit, this park was actually very dangerous. So much so that we actually left, even though we had just driven 35 minutes to get there! It had one of those bridge things that we have in the States... except that there seems to be an absence of logs. Like, there will be one log, then about a 8-10 inch HOLE, then another log. And there are only chains holding it together (even on the sides)... which means that Wyatt slipped and almost fell through the hole. I could go on about a few other dangerous features, but you get the idea.

Anyway, we are having a lot of fun checking out the various kids' activities in the area with our little group. Wyatt looks forward to meeting his "friends" every week... and so does mom :)