Little Warlord Rules the Weekend Playground With Iron Fist

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Kina’s approach to playgrounds has changed dramatically in just the last week. Once a mere dabbler in playground society, she has suddenly become the loudest kid on the playset, running headlong into battle with a guttural scream that seems never to let up. We hit up two “weekend playgrounds” during our time off this week, and Kina terrorized them both.

“Weekend playground” is a term coined by Kina last summer, when we first got our car. As we tried to find more outdoor places to escape to, Kina quickly learned that weekends meant “new playgrounds” in other neighborhoods. Before the car, all playgrounds were the same, and there were only four of them—all located within walking distance of our home. Now we see barely any of our old-fashioned weekday playgrounds as a family, which has put a huge dent in our advocacy for the Rodney Playground.

To be fair, Kina has started to terrorize all playgrounds, but she seems especially keen on conquering the weekend playgrounds, because they are ripe for the picking, and she has no accountability for the chaos she leaves in her wake. This also means that her mother and father don’t really care about her extended war cry, because they will never see these parents again. This weekend, Kina conquered two playgrounds—one in Chelsea and the other in Nolita. We have no loyalty to either neighborhood, and the kids there could frankly use a little corrective Kina treatment, so fine.

On Saturday, in Chelsea, Kina cut in front of two boys on the slide, stole one of their giant fallen tree limbs, poked the other one with a (very flexible) twig, and stalked the swings with a death stare. On Sunday, in Nolita, Kina went too quickly down the swirly slide and punted a kid off the end of it, ran screaming around the edges of the playground, questioned each child individually to see if they would let her spin them around on the spinny thing, and demanded we tie up her Elsa dress as though we were girding her loins for battle (appropriate). In each case, Kina demonstrated a willingness to take up space—and a consideration for the truly young and delicate—that made both her parents very proud.

Kina has also started running around our house howling in the last couple of days. I would say she was trying to conquer us, too, except that she did that four years ago, and I don’t see why she’s putting in the effort.

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