An Afternoon in the Park

Watching my kids play outside makes me consider how much I struggle to do the same.

Photo by Madison Nickel.

It was a typical October afternoon in Knoxville. The sun was out, the temperature was in the mid-60s, and we had at least two hours to kill before dinner. So once we got the kids up from their naps, we packed up the car and headed to Adair Park.

Even though I’ve been at this for a few years now, I feel like I haven’t really learned that much about how to properly raise small children in the time since our oldest was born. All I know for sure is one thing: if your kid is awake, and you prefer them to be happy, you’ve gotta take two things and sew them together like the threads of your favorite fall flannel. Time and place.

Because even if your toddler has had a full night’s sleep and stuffed their belly with a dozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches if your next stop is the doctor's office, their joy will quickly fade. Likewise, you can get to the zoo on a gorgeous summer morning when the tigers and elephants are out, but if you drag your feet and your trip bleeds into naptime, it doesn’t matter how many chimpanzees you see or stuffies you buy, your ears will be ringing on the car ride home. 

Of Knoxville’s many parks, Adair in Fountain City is the one I most love in this season of our lives. When Enzo was just born, I often took Alba there for an hour or two to give Haley some time to rest and bond with the new baby. In my mind, the park consists of three sections, each with equal joy-inducing potential depending on the day or the hour. The first, right beside the main parking lot, is the playground section, where Alba will hog the swingset for no less than 30 minutes at a time before hitting the slides, even when they’re covered in thick ice from a January snow.

Just past the playground, near the gazebo where we threw her first birthday party, is what I call the big sticks section of the park, where evergreens drop pinecones and branches through fall and winter. Alba collects them like seashells on the beach and occasionally if you’re not paying attention, she’ll whack you in the back of the knees with one. 

Finally, there is the big, open field at the back. This is where Haley and I go on Saturday afternoons to tire the kids out, running in circles. We round the trail, and the leaves crunch beneath the wheels of the stroller and Alba’s feet as we pull off into the grass. I grab a soccer ball, freshly pumped with air, and punt it toward the middle of the field.

When I was a boy, just old enough to make memories, my dad would take my brother and me to a park just like this one, behind the house I grew up in. He’d juggle a classic, black-and-white soccer ball on his foot, then kick it up to the clouds, and my little brother and I would follow its trail back down to the grass and chase it to wherever it fell. We’d pick the ball up with our hands, then bring it back, begging Dad to do it again.

Haley and I try to recreate this memory with Alba—though she rarely gets far before she’s distracted by a bug or giggling at a jingle she’s made up. On this particular afternoon, Alba is focused on a 94-cent Walmart calculator she calls her phone.