Swing Time

Tommy loves to go to the park and loves swings. When we bought our house five years ago, it came with a very old aluminum swingset.  We didn't have any use for it since we didn't have any kids, but we kept it up since my nieces and nephew enjoyed it, though I may have told people that they should get a tetanus shot since it was a bit old and sketchy looking!  When we finally got around to taking it down, it was when Tommy was about 9 months old and we were having a big party for my parents in our yard and we decided we wanted the eyesore out of there, plus, we had already decided we wanted a new swingset for our little prince. Funny how the old one was good enough for guests but not for our precious little boy who was not even close to using the swingset!

After much research and shopping around on-line, we finally found a set that we wanted, that would allow our Energizer Bunny lots lots of options to have fun, play, and use up some energy to get a good night's sleep!  We ordered it on-line from Lowe's and it arrived on Friday of Mother's Day weekend, unassembled.

Tommy in the box helping unload pieces of the swingset

Helping us line up and organize the pieces for easy access and perhaps cut the construction time down from 3 years to 3 weeks.

Very excited about the chalkboard; he had to carry it himself, as awkward as it looks

The three of us moved everything from the driveway to the back deck the night it arrived, with Tommy extremely excited to HELP.  We ordered pizza for dinner and when it showed up and we stopped to have dinner, he was not too happy - I think he thought he'd be on the swings that night!

I read on line that it should take 2 people about 12 hours to put together, so 24 man-hours. Our neighbor told me it took him and his brother 16 hours to do their set together. John was doing this himself, for the most part, however. He spent 14 hours on Mother's Day getting the "tree house" part of the unit up, minus the roof, which was installed last Saturday when my brother was here to help lift it.  The slide went up next since Tommy was itching for that and we were able to lift him up to the tree house and he could go down the slide. Next up was the rockwall to the tree house, so we didn't have to keep lifting him up and he could climb on his own, which he mastered very quickly.  The swings took a little longer because the "connectors" or something or other were missing, but now those are all up.  I'd say we are now 2/3 of the way done, as the bridge you see in the above picture is all that has to be constructed.

Tommy loves the swingset, and we are out in the yard every day and night that the weather is nice enjoying it with him! He's had me go down the slide a few times, though I told him the slide is not wide enough for my hips, but he insisted I go down.  Perhaps I'll share the videos one day for laughs. Or not.

Higher, Tommy commands!

I think John would say this face made the 30 hours or so that he's put into the construction so far, worth it

My All-American boy with his All-American smile

Yes, he knows how to swing from the top of the treehouse...freaks me out

Totally a pro at stopping himself as he goes down the slide if he wants to

I know he did not learn this from us...but from watching other kids at the playground or at school...

...but he has mastered the climb up the slide, I have to say

View from the roof before the top goes on

The King of His World!

We hope Tommy will get many years of enjoyment out of the swingset. We went on a bike ride last night to the neighborhood park, which we will of course continue to do for fun, but the park only has 4 swings, so if it's crowded, not a very ideal situation.  So while we debated if the swingset is worth it, it definitely is so far, since we can go out for a short time before or after dinner every night after we get home from work/school. And when we have friends over with kids, we don't have to get everyone to the park, they can play right there.  And now that our yard is fenced in, and we can see the swingset from inside the house since it's in a different spot than the old one, eventually I can sit on the deck or run in the house while he's out playing.

Oh, and I almost forgot one of Tommy's favorite parts of the whole thing - the bongo drums.  The set came with plastic bongo drums that hook into the bottom part of the tree house. I'm guessing our neighbors will love listening to us as they are all swimming and sunning by their pools around us!