It’s true…Keilani has recently discovered the magic of pretend-play, thanks I’m sure to her new friend Boobaby, and her most favorite game (aside from pretend calling her favorite people on the phone, which is adorable) is “Let’s find parking!”.

To play “Let’s find parking!”, Keilani pushes her little toy stroller or grocery cart all around the house, talking to her baby doll and saying, “Come Baby, come! We need to find parking! Oh! There’s a spot!”. She will then careen the stroller or cart wildly, pulling into the “spot” and performing the parking cheer—”YAY Baby! We found parking! YAY!” This is good for almost twenty minutes of fun with endless variations on the theme.

I guess I sort of expected Keilani to play “house” and “school” and “fort” growing up, as I did, but it never occurred to me that:

1. We live nowhere near any sort of nature where she could really build a fort, and
2. We look for parking at least three times a day, and sometimes more, even though we live in the “suburban” area of the City where there is usually plentiful parking!

You might ask why we don’t take public transportation more often, as those of you who knew us before we had kids (BK) know that we were pretty environmentally conscious even before it became “cool” to be “green”. Well, it is next-to-impossible to manhandle a 30-pound toddler, a 13-pound infant, a 19-pound stroller (even the “ultra-light umbrella models” weigh 11 pounds!), and a 3-pound diaper bag onto the bus, particularly when they require you to take said kids and bags out of the stroller (and do what with them? have the toddler stand in the street? hand the baby to some random stranger? lie the baby down in the street?) and fold the stroller and then somehow lift all 65 pounds onto the bus without dropping anything (especially the baby!)? Impossible!

So Keilani and Malia will probably play “parking” for as long as we live in the City (or at least until MUNI changes its stroller policy… hint, hint MUNI!), but hopefully they will also learn to play “recycling” and “compost” and maybe even “fort” someday, too. In the meantime, I do love hearing Keilani say, “Let’s go Baby! We found parking!”