Spielplatz #1, and the Bauerspielplatz

I skived German class today in favor of a day of sunshine with Susannah and her kids, a decision based one part on my adoration of Susannah, and one part loathing to stay inside on one of the last pretty days of the year.  The kids dug their heels in when I told them our plans, until it really sank in that I wasn't going to let them play with the computer. Or the iPhone. Or the television.  Then fresh air and exercise didn't sound so bad after all.

Susannah seems to be attempting to visit every single one of the numbered Spielplätze (playgrounds) in Zürich, and asked me along on a pilgrimage to the first of them all, Spielplatz #1, located adjacent to a community center in the north end of Zürich.

The community center playgrounds are usually the most impressive, but this one was fairly simple: a large play field, a tunnel, a merry-go-round, a zip line.  Although, as I type this, I'm reminded that I just read an article in an Seattle-based online parent's magazine listing the mere seven playgrounds in Seattle that are blessed with zip line. Yes, we'll miss some things from here.

Simple as it was, the playground was empty of other kids, our personal playground, and energetic Susannah led the kids in games of frisbee and pushed them on the swing while I idly watched her littlest scooch around a tractor toy that some child must have donated, or left behind.  The little dude can walk!

I took my turn with the kids as they negotiated turns on the zip line: Ella had sequestered it as her reading perch, and she objected when Alex tried to snatch it out from under her. Unable to understand what the two of them were saying as they both yelled their side of the story, I finally handed Ella a stick, telling them that they could only when they were holding it.  At first, Ella had appeared to believe that she could win by talking as long as possible, but eventually she ran out of things to say and surrendered the stick to Alex, who very concisely replied "I did not!" before handing it back to her.

Ella had exhausted all of her ire with her long speech, so she was at the point when she could find that extraordinarily funny, dispelling most of the tension.

They passed the stick back and forth a couple more times, trying to hash things out, and the argument ended when Ella jokingly handed the stick to Joey, who curled up next to me to watch the fun.  Joey's surprise and pleasure at being included in the Great Debate, which rendered him speechless, made both kids laugh helplessly: they both said "I love you," and Ella offered to find a different place to read.

The boys demonstrated the line for Caroline, and they had a wonderful time going back and forth, Alex leaping up on Joey's lap and the both of them flying down in tandem.  But towards the end of our time, Joey started to get tired began to object to sharing his turn with Alex. He began to wind himself up for a royal fuss, but instead, to my amazement, I saw him stretch his arms into the air and take a few deep breaths, calming himself down.

Yesterday Joey was crying because he didn't want to eat eggs for breakfast, but I wasn't budging.  Alex felt sorry for his brother and taught him this calming down trick, which he says he learned from the television show Little Bill.  I think it speaks volumes about Joey's level of adoration of his older brother that he remembered and used this technique. After he calmed himself down, he ran over to Alex, shouting "I did it! I breathed! I remembered!"

But Joey's fuse was still short, so it was time to move on.

Susannah and I decided to see if we could stretch the afternoon a little longer. On the way home was a place I'd noticed once before that made me curious: a Bauerspielplatz, or builder's playground. More simply, it was an empty lot on which kids (surely with the help of their parents) had erected six or seven little shanty houses.  On our trip out this morning, I'd noticed some children building in there and pointed them out to my kids, who were eager to join in the fun.

Ella took the lead on asking for rules and equipment: a very helpful supervisor was there, and she took us over to the tool shed and told us what was what.

There was one house (the left one, in the picture above) that any child could add on to, but children were welcome to visit the other houses as well. We were given a bucket with a carpenter's pencil, ruler, nails, hammer, pliers, and a saw.  As the supervisor gave them the equipment, Ella chimed in, "Das ist nicht das ist nicht für meinen kleinen Bruder," gesturing towards Joey. That is not for my little brother?


The woman replied "Doch, er ist okay," but then, seeing Ella's alarmed expression, altered her response.  "Well, maybe you're right. Maybe he should just use the hammer, but not the saw." Two-year-old with a hammer. Excellent!

Christopher wanted his turn with the
tools, too

A couple of other friendly parents came over to greet us. All of them were clearly enthusiastic about the philosophy of this playground: they were looking to empower their kids, and wanted to let them do most of the work themselves. My three weren't quite ready to tackle a project on their own, though, especially since they were ambitiously wanting to build a functional bench out of the pile of scrap lumber.















They were determined, Alex particularly. He gamely sawed through some boards by himself to make the bench legs, and hammered them to a plank that Ella had unearthed.  But the wood was old and a little wet, so the legs weren't really staying on. And even if the nails had worked, we hadn't used that ruler with which they'd provided us when we cut the legs: it ended up being a pretty wonky bench.

Slightly askew.

But look how proud Alex was! He asked me if we could take the bench home, to use in our apartment as furniture, but I quickly told him, no, things that were built using the materials at the playground had to stay there, which he seemed to accept.

As we left, one of the parents reiterated that the playground would be open again on Thursday, welcoming us back. When I asked the kids if they'd like to return, Alex gave me a solemn "Well, of course!" and Ella responded by twirling through the houses, shouting "This place is magical!"

So perhaps a zip line isn't required, after all, to make an excellent playground.