Outlawed in 45 States

I could be wrong, but I thought the ever-spinning, arm-breaking, vomit-causing merry-go-round had been outlawed in the United States. You just don't see them anymore because of the havoc they seem to cause when children play on them. Well, Florida, specifically Gainesville, is fighting the system. The are going to prove that the merry-go-round is the play toy of play toys. I've tried to take the kids to about every park I could find with all our abundance of free time, but they've found one they really like and don't want to go anywhere else. This park has their new favorite toy: the merry-go-round.

Rhett is sitting on a handle left of center, and Rock and Drake are in the center of the photo.

We can be at this very large park, with four different sets of "playlands" for an hour, and they don't leave the merry-go-round. I start getting sick just watching them so I have to turn away every couple of minutes so I don't get too nasueaous. (Wait, maybe it was banned by parents who had to watch it... ) Anyhow, sure enough, yesterday as we played at this park, we never left the vertigo nightmare. I would say every 2 minutes some kid got tossed from the spinning wreck, dragged by it's cyclonic power because they wouldn't let go, or cried in pain because their tummy hurt. And yet, they were compelled to get back on. Fortunately for me, there were no broken bones yesterday- I don't know how long I'll be so lucky. Rhett was thrown off and hit his head pretty hard, stood up and looked really dazed for a minute, but then got right back on. Rock was one of the kids that would try to push it really fast, and then his legs would slip out from underneath him, but his survival instinct wouldn't let him pry his grip from the bars as the toy dragged him to a levi burning and shoe destroying end. Drake just held on for his life, not really wanting to stay on, but not wanting to get off either. I guess this has been a metaphor for our life the last couple of weeks. Just a merry-go-round: as we would go round and round about our situation here we would feel dazed and confused, a little sick at times, hurt, go into survival mode, and want to get off, but just stay on because we knew we should. I love Gainesville. I've had a lot of time to get to know it over the last month and know there are wonderful things waiting for us here. This doesn't mean I don't miss home terribly, but this is a ride I'm glad we took.

As a side note, last week when we went to the park the merry-go-round was missing a handle bar. When we went back yesterday it was fixed! I was so impressed! The city actually fixed a toy in a park with all the other issues it probably has to take care of! This is a city I can be a part of with pride :)



Here's London eating prunes. She likes everything but peas and her favorite is green beans. She smiles after every bite. It's absolutely hysterical. This is definitely her favorite activity, along with being held, talked to and harassed by her brothers. As I fed her these prunes I realized she might do well wearing the color maroon or a deep burgandy.