Playgrounds and Parakeets

Blog post double header today - here is the first post of (hopefully) two, provided that the little one (well, actually, now our big one!) stays napping.

On that note: I was refering to our toddler son as the "little one" on the blog, but now he has competition in the form of our littlest man, who is already just over one week old!  Ideas for blog pseudonyms for both boys are welcome!

In any case, I have been meaning to post about the playgrounds for a while now and just have not gotten around to it.  Playgrounds are everywhere here, though some of them consist only of a single slide or swingset nestled beside an RER stop.  We are lucky to have at least 5 playgrounds within walking distance here, set between the apartment buildings in the neighborhood.  Our neighborhood was built in the 1970s in response to the massive influx of immigrants to the Paris region, many of them Algerians who settled in France after Algerian independence.  The apartment buildings were clearly built hastily to accommodate the swelling population, and they are definitely not the gorgeous Art Deco buildings of Paris.  Instead, they are squat concrete rectangles with zero embellishments or personality.  The plus, though, is that in the spaces between buildings, small parks have emerged, with greenery and playgrounds in between nearly every apartment complex.  These parks are maintained by the city and open to all, and are generally in pretty good condition.  While the park below is actually in Paris, it gives you a good idea of the size of playgrounds here (this would be considered large-ish):

What cracks me up about these parks (and the French culture in general) is how incredibly rules-oriented and safety-conscious they are.  Posted in every playground is a list of rules (and a long list at that).  The playing surface is typically made of shock-absorbent rubber.  Even funnier than the rules are the individual plaques that adorn each piece of playground equipment:

Each piece of equipment has a designated age range - both a minimum and a maximum age.  And kids are aware of this, too.  A couple of weeks ago I was supervising the little one as he (gasp!) played on a structure suitable for kids age 4 and up.  A little boy no older than 5 came up to me and, with a worried look on his face, told me that the little guy should not be playing on this piece of equipment, because he could fall and hurt himself.  I thanked the little boy and told him that it was ok, that I was there to watch him, and that this is how he would learn what he was comfortable with.  Clearly, the little boy had never heard this particular brand of logic, as he just stared at me, puzzled. 

Now, the above is NOT meant to imply that French parents are all overprotective or that the kids will grow up not knowing how to take calculated risks.  There is actually a lot of nice logic to this layout.  Parents can allow their kids some freedom on the age-appropriate equipment with little chance of injury.  Kids can play independently without their parents hovering over them.  This is often the case, as many parents spend their playground time sitting on the park benches that ring the playground, while the kids run around as they please.  It is totally different than our playground experiences with toddlers in Portland, where parents were almost always integrally involved as their kids explored the park.  I see pros and cons to both extremes, yet it is interesting to note the prevalent attitude in each locale.

If you have read this far, you are probably wondering where the parakeets tie in.  There is a link, I promise.  When my mother was visiting last month, she came in from playing with the little one and told L that she thought she had seen a lime green parakeet in a tree.  It snows here, which is hardly the ideal environment for these birds, so we assumed she had seen something different.  A few days later, though, our neighbor asked me if I had seen the parakeets yet.  Parakeets?  Yes, he told me, there is a whole flock of them that live here, out in the wild.  No one knows if they were initially just a couple of released pets or if they came from elsewhere as stowaways, but they were here.  And ever since then I have been scouring the parks for them, to no avail.  But last week, when I was walking the dogs through the nearest park early in the morning after a mostly sleepless night full of newborn diaper changes, I heard one, then two, then lots of parakeets chattering.  I looked up to see a flock of two dozen parakeets, some lime green, some sage green.  Two dozen!  So they do exist.  I will try to take a picture for next time.

Ok, on to post number two.  Stay tuned!

- E