Category Archives: Parenting

Parenting research and personal anecdotes.

Firefighter Storytime

When Jaeger’s mom came out to visit we went to the Erie library and noticed signs on the door stating there was to be a Firefighter Storytime in a couple of weeks. Oddly enough, it wasn’t during times that I normally work¹. I filed it away and meant to look up more information about it later but then forgot. Monday, we went to the Erie library again. Unfortunately, in my rush to get out of the house, I had neglected to pick up the bag with our items that needed to be returned. Normally, this wouldn’t be a huge problem but I had a member video checked out that I couldn’t renew². I glumly resigned myself to revisiting the library again that week³. However, as we entered the library, I saw the flyer again for the firefighters and realized they would be visiting Tuesday and Thursday of this week. Since I had been thinking of taking Calvin anyway, this worked out well for returning the video.

Tuesday we visited the library again for the storytime. This time I remembered the bag and successfully returned our books and videos. Calvin was very excited by the prospect of the Firefighter Storytime. We got there early to stake out our seat on the floor. To my surprise, there were hardly any kids there. However, Calvin enjoyed listening to the stories and watching the fireman put on his gear. They were hoping that the firetruck would be free but it ended up being out on a call. The children’s librarian hinted that perhaps we’d have better luck if we came back for the Thursday storytime.

I was a bit ambivalent about taking Calvin back to the library yet again. However, I eventually decided firefighter storytimes were rare enough that it’d be worth it. It was a good choice. There were different firefighters this time and probably four times the number of kids there had been on Tuesday.. They read the obligatory firefighter books⁴. However, in addition to the firefighter showing off his gear, they had a little “hot or not” game to indoctrinate kids of the types of things they need to be careful of. In addition, the kids all practiced dropping to the ground and crawling when the smoke detector went off. I was fascinated that in both of the storytimes once the firefighter had his gear on, he requested the kids come and give him a high-five or a hug. They were trying to show the kids that firefighters aren’t scary so the kids wouldn’t hide from the firefighters in case of a real fire (which makes me wonder how often that happens).

We were lucky and after the second story time we were able to go outside and see a fire truck. I hadn’t brought Calvin’s fleece in, because the building was warm, but it was a bit nippy outside so he wore mine. Naturally, Calvin had a blast.

Most library storytimes are not designed for working parents. I complained about this once or twice but was told that non-morning storytimes are not attended well. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see this storytime was running from 4:15-5. It still wouldn’t work for someone working full-time but was perfect for me. ↩
Branch items will renew up to 15 times unless someone puts a hold on it. However, member items only renew 1-2 times, depending on the type of item. I’m employed by the district and the relationship between the district and member libraries can be heated so I try very hard to return all member items on time religiously. ↩
Don’t get me wrong, I love libraries but it’s not the most convenient location for us to visit since we live in Boulder. Once a week visits fill our need for books and movies without monopolizing all of our afternoons. ↩
I think it’s a requirement that every firefighter storytime include Curious George and the Firefighters. ↩

East Boulder Community Park, Boulder, CO

The weather has calmed down a bit, at least for the moment. Boulder has great parks but, sadly, they don’t have water features nor a lot of shade. Thus, most summer days I was unwilling to drag myself to the park. Then, we had a lot of lovely rain that turned into flooding. Even I must admit we got too much rain. Several days after the flood the weather was in the lower 70s and sunny, perfect park weather. Unfortunately, every park we tried was closed due to flooding or the roads to the park were closed.

Today, we tried another excursion, this time to East Boulder Community Park. I also made sure to check ahead of time that it wasn’t on the closed park list and all the roads to it were open.

This playground is in a large park complex that includes a rec center, lake, dog park, tennis courts, handball courts, and squash courts (we have these in the US?). The playground itself is very nicely designed. Most of it is fenced in, probably to prevent the ducks from getting in, but it also nicely corrals the children. In addition, there’s a very wide variety of playground equipment for all ages as well as shaded picnic tables.

Before we entered the playground area, Calvin got distracted by the lake and the ducks. However, Calvin lost interest fairly quickly.

As soon as we entered, Calvin headed straight for the prominent reptile. He was going to climb up on it but the sun had made its surface fairly hot.

After the reptile, Calvin headed straight for the play area designed for 5-12 year olds.

This play equipment had a couple of unique features. One of them was the rollerslide.

Calvin managed to do fairly well on the roller log. He keeps getting bigger . . .

The equipment also had three different types of bridges: an arch bridge, belt bridge (basically reinforced rubber), and a “clatter” bridge.

It also had “enrichment” options such as the maze panel, tic-tac-toe, and bubble panel.

I was fascinated by the “spiral climber.” They were pretty big steps but Calvin managed.

Also, Calvin is hanging on better to overhead equipment. This is the trapeze horizontal ladder. He couldn’t manage to get to the next trapeze bar but hung on this one for a fairly long time.

Calvin briefly went over and explored the equipment designed for 2-5 year olds but found it fairly uninteresting.

There is also a “club house” and a contraption that looked like it was suppose to be hooked up to water. However, it wasn’t turned on.

Most of the surface material was sand. However, they had an official sandbox as well as a digger.

However, the highlight of the visit was probably the discovery of the “playworks” structure. At first it looks like just another piece of playground equipment. However, if you look closer, you can see it has various tubes running through the structure as well as tethered shovels to pour sand into the tops of the tubes.

The tethered shovels were good in that they wouldn’t walk away. However, they are a bit awkward to use. Fortunately, I had brought along Calvin’s shovel, pail, and dump truck just in case we discovered sand. This allowed Calvin to put sand in his bucket and lug it up, and then use his shovel to move the sand down to his dump truck at the bottom of the tube.

This is a very nice playground. I’ll definitely plan to visit it again in the future.

Summary:

Features	5-12 year old equipment, 2-5 year old equipment, club house, sand box, sand play works (tubes and shovels), sand digger, roller slide, covered slide, bridges, tic-tac-toe, maze panel, bubble panel, spiral steps, trapeze horizontal ladder, log roll, regular swings, bucket swings, track ride, spring riders
Surface Material	Mostly sand but some poured rubber
Restrooms	I assume there are restrooms in the rec center but didn’t see anything obvious near the playground
Water fountain	Not sure
Shade	Shaded shelter with picnic tables. The 5-12 year old play equipment does get some shade from trees but the rest is un-shaded.
Picnic area	There are two small covered shelter with picnic tables.
Parking	Parking lot for both the playground, community center, and everything else in the area.
Pros	Amazing variety of equipment for a fairly small area Has a nice variety of things for children to play on regardless of age. Lots of nice sand play options
Cons	Nothing obvious

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Scot Carpenter Park, Boulder, CO

One Sunday, a couple of weeks back, the weather went from being oppressively hot to comfortable temperatures with a slight drizzle. I jumped at the opportunity to go outside in reasonably nice weather and decided to take Calvin to the park.

Calvin had asked me the previous day if we could go to the “rocket park”. He meant the Scott Carpenter Park which is probably most famous for the 4-story rocket. When he was younger Calvin had to be coached up by daddy. However, now he blithely scrambles to the top by himself.

Upon first entering the park, there are two large metal discs that allow you to make echoes.

The rocket is the most prominent feature in the playground. However, it has quite a few different play areas.

There’s a sand area that I think is suppose to be moon-crater-like.

Calvin enjoyed scrambling up the rock.

Even though Calvin is comfortable with the biggest structures now, he still likes scrambling through the little toddler tunnels.

There’s also a couple of space-themed spring riders. This one is a two-seater that he convinced me to hop on with him after the picture.

All-in-all, it’s a very nice park. The only slight downside is it’s so popular it can become mobbed.

Summary:

Features	4-story rocket!, sand pit, playground equipment for everyone from toddlers to older children, swings, bucket swings, spring riders, slides, spiral slide, covered slide, double slide, echo panels, ladders, climbing nets, fireman poles
Surface Material	Mostly pea gravel but some poured rubber
Restrooms	I think there are restrooms, or at least a porta-potty but I forget to check for sure. The Scott Carpenter pool is right next to the playground and they must have restrooms there.
Water fountain	Not sure
Shade	Shaded shelter with picnic tables. However, none of the playground equipment is shaded and it’s of older materials and may get hot.
Picnic area	There is one covered shelter with picnic tables.
Parking	Parking lot for both the park, the pool, and everything else in the area.
Pros	Rocket! Has a nice variety of things for children to play on regardless of age.
Cons	Can be very crowded at times.

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Holiday Park, Boulder, CO

While visiting the Reading in Spires Little Library, Calvin wandered over to play at the playground equipment. This park had almost nothing indicating its name or purpose. However, based on the a sign advertising “movies in the park”, I eventually decided it must be a Holiday HOA created park. Unlike our HOA, there were no nasty signs telling non-residents to leave immediately¹.

The playground isn’t large but has a nice selection of things to climb.

Kompan “Triple Shifter”

They had several large rock-like sculptures that I thought Calvin would enjoy climbing. However, we mostly hid under the larger one avoiding the rain.

The plaque on one of the rocks says it’s by Monolithic Sculpture Inc. This appears to have been a Boulder company at one point.

Landscape Structures “SpringRing Bouncer”

We didn’t spend a huge amount of time at this park. However, that was mainly because I wanted to go see the next little library. Calvin probably would have had fun for another half hour if I had let him.

As we were walking back to the car, I noticed one of the surrounding buildings is guarded by gargoyles.

Summary:

Features	climbing structures, ring bouncer, pretend megaphone, pretend binoculars, stairs to nowhere
Surface Material	poured rubber
Restrooms	No restrooms :(
Water fountain	None
Shade	Very little. Eventually some of the trees may grow tall enough to provide shade. The largest rock allows some huddling under.
Picnic area	There are a couple of picnic tables
Pros	Interesting things to climb on
Cons	No bathrooms of any kind.

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Our HOA probably does it for safety reasons . . . or something. Personally, the more kids there are in the park, the happier I am because Calvin will play with them instead of asking me to play with him. ↩

On Dying

Out of the blue at supper this evening Calvin said, “if you and daddy died I would be all alone.” This was not a topic I expected to discuss at supper. However, I recovered (hopefully quickly) and told him that he wouldn’t be alone if we died because daddy and I had made a plan. If daddy and I died, he would go live with Uncle Yanthor and Aunt Anya. Then Calvin backed up and wondered how he could get to Uncle Yanthor and Aunt Anya’s house. I told him we had a plan for that too and Grandma Judi and Grandma and Nana would make sure to take care of him while everything was getting sorted out.

Calvin seemed to find this scenario very interesting¹ and hopefully (?) started listing off the different ways Jaeger and I could die. He finally decided that a car crash was the most likely². He then worried that he might be in the car with us when we have our accident. At that point I decided to talk about seat belt safety and pointed out we wear our seat belts to lessen the chance we would die in an accident. Then he started talking about chicken pox and we delved into vaccines and measles.

All-in-all it was a very strange conversation. At least Jaeger and I have an obvious plan that I could tell him about.

I think he had visions of playing with Uncle Yanthor all day every day. ↩
Given our ages and currently known health status, I suppose this could be the most likely cause of death in the moderately near future. ↩

Christiansen Park, Boulder, CO

One the way home from the Arapahoe Ridge Park we stopped by Christiansen Park. This park is more of a neighborhood park in size. It has a nice structure and some swings but nothing that makes it overly unique.

Calvin immediately became enthralled with the chalk hopscotch markings that had been left on the sidewalk.

The playground equipment had both a double slide and a spiral slide.

These are the first dinosaur spring riders I’ve seen.

Calvin enjoyed hanging upside down on the bike rack.

Calvin particularly enjoyed the sliding pole. He went slid down it several times. However, the last time he got a friction burn and decided it was time to go home.

Summary:

Features	Double slide, spiral slide, age 5-12 playground equipment, bucket swings, swings, dinosaur spring riders, sliding pole, shaded bench and picnic table, biking paths
Surface Material	Sand with poured rubber underneath the double slide
Restrooms	No restrooms :(
Water fountain	None
Shade	Shaded shelter with picnic table. There is also a shaded bench.
Picnic area	There is one covered shelter with a picnic table
Pros	Nice neighborhood park
Cons	No bathrooms of any kind.

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Arapahoe Ridge Park, Boulder, CO a.k.a. Rock Park

We haven’t gone to the park recently because it’s been beastly hot (i.e. above 80 degrees). Last week wasn’t too bad but I spent much of the week wandering around to various libraries looking at their ILS (catalog system). Fortunately, mom was around to watch Calvin since preschool had their summer conference and was closed Wednesday-Friday. This morning I took mom back to the airport. When I arrived back home I was shocked to see it was still in the 70s. I had planned to do USEFUL THINGS but decided we needed to grab the opportunity to go to the park while the weather was bearable.

Today I decided we’d go to Arapahoe Ridge Park. I saw a post about it on 8Z Real Estate that sounded interesting¹

In some ways, the park is very traditional. It actually has a real merry-go-round which I didn’t realize still existed in any Boulder parks.

What really makes this park stand out though is the rock cave and tunnel system. It’s a man-made structure that has numerous tunnels kids can wiggle through as well as a large cave area that can fit quite a few children. Most parks we’ve visited have one or two mothers with their young kids. However, when we arrived at this one there was a swath of older neighborhood kids who were hanging out in the cool cave area.

The tunnels were fun looking but definitely sized for children, not adults. One father was playing tag with his kids. He did manage to wiggle through the tunnels without getting stuck but his kids had a definite advantage.

Calvin enjoyed clambering on top of the rocks.

Calvin called the little cave a house.

The park also has an older-style playground which apparently use to have a slide but, according to the 8z site, was removed because it allowed the kids to go too fast. What remains is a tic-tac-toe feature, which Calvin got me to play with him, and 3 steering wheels.

Summary:

Features	Rock cave and tunnels, bucket swings, tennis court, ball field, tic-tac-toe feature, steering wheels, spring riders merry-go-round, grill, shaded picnic table, shaded benches
Surface Material	Pea Gravel
Restrooms	No restrooms :(
Water fountain	None
Shade	Shaded shelter with picnic table. There are also several shaded benches. However, most of the play equipment, except in the rock cave, is out under the sun
Picnic area	There is one covered shelter with a picnic table
Parking	Parking was a little odd. There doesn’t appear to be any official parking lot so we ended up parking in one of the cul-de-sacs that were close to the park.
Pros	Rock cave/tunnel Merry-go-round
Cons	No bathrooms of any kind.

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The 8z post says there is a baby bucket swing as well as a regular swing. All I saw were 2 bucket swings, no regular ones. ↩

The Read-Aloud Handbook, Go Buy it Now

I just checked out the seventh edition of The Read-Aloud Handbook, by Jim Trelease. I read an earlier edition when Calvin was an infant but decided it was time for a re-read. I was impressed by how much additional content had been added to the seventh edition, mostly in the area of eBooks.

The basic premise of The Read-Aloud Handbook is that it is essential for parents and teachers to read aloud to their children. Being a librarian, it’s not surprisingly I’m a firm proponent of this message. However, I’m an adult librarian. Before having Calvin I was absolutely hopeless with children¹. After graduate school when I was desperately looking for jobs I never applied for a children or young adult librarian position even though those positions seemed relatively plentiful at the time.

Before Calvin was born, I spent years researching pregnancy and various stages of early childhood. It wasn’t until Calvin was here that I realized I, the librarian, had no idea what sort of books I should be providing Calvin and at what points in his life. I went to the library and checked out stacks of books about books and children. Most of them were good but the book that stands out the most in my mind is Trelease’s book. It contains a ton of practical advice nicely balanced with both anecdotes and research.

A significant port of the book is available online through Trelease’s website However, if you are a parent and have not read this book yet, run to your nearest bookstore or library and procure it.

I suspect I’m still hopeless with every child except Calvin. ↩

Herbert Park, Lincoln, NE, USA

We’ve been in Lincoln for the past couple of days visiting friends. We’ve spent most of this time playing board games that are way above Calvin’s current abilities. While we do this he watches an excessive amount of videos or plays with Legos. However, I’ve been trying to make sure he has at least one active thing to do each day.

Yesterday I took Calvin to Herbert Park which is relatively near our friends’ house. I forgot my phone to take pictures. However, the visit didn’t last as long as I was expecting. The park has a wonderful old-fashioned merry-go-round. Anya and I pushed Calvin on it for a pretty long time. Then, he went over to the swings. I gave him one big push on the swing and Calvin regurgitated supper. So, we decided that was enough park for the day.

Today, Jaeger and I took Calvin back to the park, before supper, and this time I remembered my phone. This park is hidden away, Anya didn’t even realize it was there before I found it on the city’s list of parks with playgrounds. It wasn’t clear where the park entrace was so the first time I went there I went south on 81st and turned left on Trail Ridge Rd. I found a place to park but it required hiking through a field to get down to the playground. This time I turned right and was able to park close to the playground on Apache Trail.

Calvin remembered the merry-go-round fondly from our last visit and immediately headed to it. I did agree to push him on the merry-go-round again but limited it to shorter pushes with more breaks in between.

Calvin briefly played with the spring rider but didn’t find it nearly as novel as the merry-go-round.

The playground also had some traditional playground equipment that is technically rated for ages 5-12. It had both a curved slide and a straight one. Calvin pretended the equipment was a ship and slid down the slide to get to a life raft, which was a rubber square.

The park has a digger but it’s a little too big for Calvin and also isn’t in top condition (though still workable).

Jaeger pushed Calvin a bit on the swings without any unfortunate incidences this time.

All-in-all, it’s a nice little park. We’ll probably visit it again next time we’re in Lincoln.

Summary:

Features	Swings, bucket swings, merry-go-round, digger, age 5-12 playground equipment, slide, circular slide, 2 spring riders
Surface Material	Rubber for most of the area with a sand/pea gravel combo for the swing and digger area
Restrooms	Yes! There’s a porta potty across the bridge next to the park entrance
Water fountain	Yes, next to the porta potty
Shade	There are a several mature trees that offer shade for the benches, not as much shade for the playground equipment
Picnic area	Several picnic tables including a covered shelter on the other side of the bridge
Pros	Merry-go-round! (hard to find these days) Bathrooms and water fountain
Cons	Playground equipment is not too old but is showing signs of very minor wear It’s a little hard to find the right place to park on the first visit

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A Sandbox for Calvin

Back in March I became obsessed with getting Calvin a sandbox. Calvin loves playing in the sand at any park we go to and I liked the idea of having one in our own backyard where he could play. However, I had a lot of trouble finding what appeared to be a suitable sandbox. I spent hours online looking for a good size sandbox and did find a couple interesting options but none that had the depth I was looking for.

I started talking to Jaeger about sandboxes and he suggested I email his parents since he recalled having a fantastic sandbox when he was growing up. I emailed his mom and she said his dad had built a 6’x6’x3′ sandbox and sunk all but 1 foot into the ground. This sounded brilliant to me. Our yard had an area that was suppose to be a rose garden but the roses didn’t take. I measured and decided I could put a 6’x4′ box in there without any problem. However, Jaeger wasn’t interested in building one himself and I couldn’t find any sandboxes that fit my specifications.

After a while, it occurred to me that a planter box is basically the same thing as a sandbox. I poked around the internet more and found a website that not only sold planter boxes but allowed customers to specify custom dimensions. Jaeger and I sat on this information for a while to see if it’s really something we wanted to do. Meantime, we tried to figure out what to do with the massive concrete patio we have in back. Eventually we decided to get two planters for the patio. I ordered them from NaturalYards as kind of a test for the sandbox. I thought they turned out pretty good.

Eventually, I got around to ordering a 6’x4’x33″ planter to use as Calvin’s sandbox. My original plan was to dig a 2′ hole to sink it into. However, I quickly discovered large tree roots running through the area. Given how many trees we had on our yard, I decided it was probably a lot cause trying to find any place that I could dig a 6’x4’x2′ hole without hitting roots. Plus, the rose garden has a decent amount of shade so hopefully Calvin could avoid getting burned to a crisp.

The sandbox kit arrived last week. On Sunday, Jaeger rerouted a drip line that went through the sandbox area, leveled the ground, and put down a weed barrier.

Preparing the sandbox area

After Jaeger finished preparing the ground, I started putting the sandbox together. Everything went well except that I discovered the side trim was the wrong size. They were were 27 1/2″ instead of 33″. The trim is important because it would keep the sand from leaking out at the corners. I emailed the company on Sunday and Monday morning they apologized and mailed out another set of trim by express.

Sandbox without trim

Jaeger made a trip to Home Depot and came back with some pea gravel for the bottom, to promote good drainage.

Sandbox with pea gravel

Calvin had quite a bit of fun with the box even though there wasn’t any sand in it yet. Even though it’s 33″ tall, he was managing to clamber in and out without a chair or ladder. Long-term we’ll probably put something on the side to assist getting into the sandbox.

Nana, Jaeger’s mom, was visiting us and was kind enough to call various landscaping companies trying to find good sand for sandboxes. Due to the dust issue I was hoping for river or beach sand. However, apparently that isn’t commonly available in Colorado. There are options to buy super safe sand online but they’d end up costing thousands of dollars. In the end, I decided to go with Mason sand and try to minimize the dust by wetting it down.

Nana, Calvin, and I dropped by Pioneer Sand Company on the way to the library to make sure Mason sand really would be the right consistency for a sandbox¹. It looked good so we ordered 2 tons. It turns out that 2 tons of sand is not nearly as much as it seems like it should be.

The sand was delivered, via dumptruck, to our house this morning. While watching the dump truck dump the sand I realized that I should have schedule them to come sometime when Calvin could have watched.

2 tons of sand

After work, I started transporting the sand from our driveway to the sandbox in the back yard. 2 tons didn’t look like much sand in the dump truck, or even on the driveway, but it seemed like a lot of sand once I started transferring it. I shoveled sand for 1 1/2 hrs before having to take a break to pick up Calvin from preschool. Then, I shoveled for another 1 1/2 hrs before it was finally all in the sandbox. It was a lot of work but we ended up with the perfect amount of sand.

Not surprisingly, Calvin was really excited.

Calvin and I had a brief safety talk about what sort of things one doesn’t do in a sandbox. Calvin seemed to think it was obvious that you shouldn’t bury anyone’s head in the sand but was less enthusiastic when I told him he shouldn’t be jumping around on top of it (given how high it is from the ground, I’m a bit worried about the fall he could take).

The new trim arrived this afternoon so after supper I put the finishing touches on the sandbox. (Note the tiny shovel in the picture. That’s a Calvin-sized shovel that I picked up at McGuckins. It’s perfect for Calvin.)

Below is the finished sandbox. Jaeger will probably take better pictures later but it gives you a feel for what it looks like.

The two things that still need to be done is to figure out the best way to let Calvin climb into the sandbox and what sort of cover to put on top. Given we have cats, a cover is essential. For now, I have one of our tarps on top weighted down with some rocks. However, we need something else for long-term use.

I’m not looking forward to my aching arms tonight. However, I think Calvin’s going to have a lot of fun with the sandbox.

Some places on the web suggested that pea gravel could be used instead of sand to minimize dust. However, the obvious problem with pea gravel is you can’t use it to build anything. I’m not sure what good it does in a sandbox. ↩

Kiesa's Mutterings

Rarely updated entries on my life

Category Archives: Parenting

Firefighter Storytime

East Boulder Community Park, Boulder, CO

Scot Carpenter Park, Boulder, CO

Holiday Park, Boulder, CO

On Dying

Christiansen Park, Boulder, CO

Arapahoe Ridge Park, Boulder, CO a.k.a. Rock Park

The Read-Aloud Handbook, Go Buy it Now

Herbert Park, Lincoln, NE, USA

A Sandbox for Calvin