When your baby has ripened to ‘playground age’ you enter the school of Playground Etiquette. You learn that when there’s an empty playground the world is your child’s oyster. The slides can be used without abandon, the swings can be hogged and the sandbox you can treat like a playroom - letting your toys sit around in between play sessions.

However, when the playground is a hustling, bustling madhouse the rules are quite different. Your child can swing - so long as there are no parents giving you the stink eye while they hold their anxious baby or stand there with an impatient toddler (or bigger kid). The slide is something to be taken seriously, in turns and only when the last slider has safely exited the slide landing pad.

And then there’s the sandbox. Really a world all it’s own. First lesson of Sandbox is everyone else’s toys are better then the ones your mom always brings. From a child’s stand-point (for those under about age 5) the, “Wow that’s cool” and grab technique is sometimes the only method learned, that’s when it’s the on-duty parent/caregiver’s job to say, “Wait honey, let’s ask if it’s ok if we check that out.” But just like when you’re cut off by a car and they think a little wave & a nod makes it all better, the sandbox-toy-taker’s responsible party are often not present or they simply stand by and watch as their child acts like they own the place.

I’m not asking much here, just some sort of agreement that the toy(s) their little one is using isn’t their’s. A simple, “Is that ok?” from the adult in charge, will suffice really. Of course it’s ok but it’s a polite bare minimum way to say, ‘I know those aren’t ours.’ When you don’t get this iota of acknowledgement it’s not a big deal, as long as the adult acts responsible, ensuring that their child leaves the toys behind appropriately. Sometimes it seems there is this all too common worst case scenario where the toys are nabbed, removed from the sandbox and then your left to be the detective, scouring the playground for that darn green shovel. Often times writing your name on it wont even do the trick!

Today’s venture into the playground world ended sans two of our sand toys. I was diligent this time, packing up our toys as we finished up and moved on to the next activity. The perpetrators were newbie toddlers who lifted a dandy red scoop and a swell blue pig mold. They will be missed. The worst part about this for me is how my daughter reacts when noticing that some of her toys are M.I.A. she feels personally hurt by the selfish kids (and absentee adult), “Why did they take my toys Mama?” - They didn’t mean to really, they just liked them and must have thought someone had left them behind. Not really true just an attempt at easing her emotions. Really the toys were removed from inside our stroller, from inside our sandbox-toy-bag! That was a long way for these tots to go to swipe some goodies, and a long time for the adults to ignore that their child was rifling thru someone else’s things and hoisting them for their own.

Now the only street justice you can get in these situations (or perhaps Park Justice) is when your child is playing then suddenly shouts, “Hey Mama, look at this firetruck I just found!” -Wow you just found that while digging honey? It’s yours!