Sunday Morning at the Park

What a wonderful Sunday morning it was. The sun was shining and Ben and I went to the park at Paddington Recreation Center. (Zach was still sleeping when we left at 9:30am.) Despite the name, the park is in Maida Vale (not Paddington, though near it), which is the neighborhood directly to the west of St. John's Wood (and then Notting Hill of movie fame is the neighborhood to the west of that). In some ways, we live closer to most of MV than we do SJW as we live in the latter's southwest corner and are much closer to the small but charming high street on Clifton Road than the larger but a bit stuffier high street in SJW. I digress.

Today was the day Ben was going to try youth football and they have group instruction and play at the rec center. That mission was aborted quite quickly as Ben was too nervous to join in. It was a wonderful facility with many large perfectly maintained soccer pitches but I too have to admit that it was wise to bail. The kids ranged from 5 (Ben is 4 yrs, 11 mos) to much older and though they broke out the smaller kids into their own group, it was pretty overwhelming. We're going to look for a program that's a bit smaller and more welcoming.

Ben was far more interested in playing at the park, which was such a nice place (just refurbished, I was informed). It's a 15 minute walk from home and how we didn't know about it until yesterday is beyond me. It's cool that we keep discovering new places to explore. He ran all over and we had such a nice time, just the two of us. When the soccer class let out, the park was quickly overrun with older kids, but it was probably time to go anyway, so we headed home to spend the day with the rest of the family.

It was a special morning. If there's a more heartwarming moment than walking home from the park on a beautiful sunny day holding your little boy's hand and talking about things both big and small, I've yet to experience it.