Of course, this led to an enormous amount of pretend play. I can't even remember every single game the girls roped me into, but the Big Four were as follows:
1) Hogwarts School
Julia, as Hermione, decided that I, Professor McGonagall, had put her in charge of exploring all of the secret passageways (crawling tunnels) to look for "special tires."
(ME: Okay, what do the special tires do?
JULIA: Mmm...maybe keep you alive forever?)
2) Hide and Seek
Julia's inventive hiding places included a) under the ginormous, in-ground monster truck tires, b) inside the tunnel of the tunnel slide, and c) inside various crawling tunnels. Madeleine's hiding places consisted of the very last place Julia had hidden in her turn right beforehand.
3) Spy
This was the most elaborate game of all. The objective was for Julia and Madeleine to sneak around the playground and stay out of my eyesight, whether by climbing into tunnels, or by hiding their bodies behind larger structures as they moved. My job was to try and spy them. If I actively caught them out in the open trying to get from one hiding spot to another, they had to go to jail. Jail was a set of metal bars underneath one of the slides. Only one person could be in jail at a time, so if Julia was in jail and then I spotted Madeleine, Julia would be freed from jail and allowed to take off stealthily once again. Seeing as I was never going to actually let my kids get out of my eyesight, I kind of ALWAYS knew where they were, but tried to make it look like I couldn't see them unless they were blatantly out in the open, making a mad dash to another tree or structure they could slink behind.
4) Baby
This was probably the game the girls loved best. Madeleine was Julia's newborn baby, Emily, who was coming home from the hospital. They started off in one of the under-structure play areas, which happened to contain two wooden beams upon which to sit, as well as a wheel that served as their car steering wheel. After Julia took baby Emily home, she set up a crib (inside one of the crawling tunnels.) As Emily grew, Julia took her on daily trips to places like the donut shop, and off to Vermont to visit me, the grandmother. The best part of this game was that I wasn't supposed to live in state with them, so I got to sit on a bench and just watch from afar as they played, only needing to interact when they came to visit Vermont. MUCH less mental and physical energy than was required in the Spy game.
When we got home from the playground, the kids were FILTHY from all their crawling around underneath tires and things, so I gave them both baths, got them into their pjs, put on a show, and cooked dinner. As soon as we all sat down to eat, Madeleine announced she needed to poop, so she then pulled OFF her pjs in order to get on the potty. From behind the closed door of the bathroom, I then heard this:
MADELEINE: Mama? After my bath, did you use the DUCKIE towel on me?
ME: Uh, no, I used the pig towel.
MADELEINE: (wailing) But MAMAAAAAAA! I wanted you to use the DUCKIE towel!
ME: Well, hon, it's all done with now, and it was a few hours ago, so there's not really much I can do about it at this point. Next time I'll use the duckie towel.
MADELEINE: But Mama? Tomorrow can we go to that SAME playground and then can we come home and take a bath and you can give me the duckie towel?
ME: Uh...we'll see.
MADELEINE: But MAMAAAAAAA! Don't say "We'll SEEEEEEEE!" I want you to say "YES!"
Turns out we didn't go back to the same playground today after all, and Madeleine was a-okay with it, because Day #3 of out-of-town adventures took us to Gath Pool in Newton:
Julia immediately took the deep water test and passed, so she spent the majority of her time happily plunging off the diving boards:
Instead of taking Madeleine over to the separate kiddie wading pool, I figured I'd try taking her into the main pool, which is 3 feet at its shallowest. Madeleine could basically tap her toes down on the ground, but otherwise was forced to rely on her own knowledge gained by swim lessons. And, wouldn't you know it: the kid can actually, really, legitimately swim, all by herself:
Holy Cow. I knew she could swim a stroke or two without touching the ground, but at Gath Pool today, Madeleine just took to swimming back and forth, stroke after stroke, without needing to grab the wall or me or anything.
She even took a few jumps - all by herself - off the side and into the pool, but then she cut her foot on the metal frame around the edge of the steps and started bleeding and we had to go see the lifeguards to get her foot all bandaged up.
After that, Madeleine was pretty much done with swimming:
Once Julia was ready to come out of the water, we headed to the car, and Julia lamented, "I'm REALLY gonna miss this pool!" As we drove home, I asked the girls if they'd had fun.
JULIA: Yes. SO MUCH FUN.
MADELEINE: Um, only ONE.
ME: Only one fun?
MADELEINE: Yeah. Because...I hurt my TOE.
I'm glad she had at least *one* fun, though, and I would bet she actually had a lot MORE fun than only one fun, seeing as there was a bunch of swimming and jumping taking place before the big bloody toe incident. Especially since she suggested we all move to Newton so we can frequent that pool as members.
MADELEINE: Well, Mama, maybe we can just MOVE to NEWTON so we can get a membership!
JULIA: Madeleine. We can't move to Newton.
MADELEINE: But Julia. Don't you LIKE Newton?
JULIA: I do, but I just want to live at home. Madeleine. If we move to Newton, we'll miss Rosemary Pool too much. And I'll miss my school too much. And we won't get to see our friends that often.
MADELEINE: Well...we can just have THEM move to Newton too!
That Madeleine. Always so on point with that logical mind of hers.
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