I spent today babysitting Leo, Dana Points's 5-year-old boy. I picked him up from school and we immediately went across the street to spend the afternoon in Central Park. As the carousel was closed, we went to the nearby playground - but mostly skipped it in favor of the outcropping of granite that overshadows the monkey bars. We looked for pieces of flat wood to make tiny boats and sleds out of, avoided the "lava" (melted ice) that ran down parts of the "volcano" (the rocks) and explored the crevasses and pools of the stone.

Other people had our idea to hang out in the sun, too. Two boys floated wood in a murky puddle in the middle of the rocks - "This is SS Cargo, we're in enemy territory!" - and somehow their little wet hands didn't fall off from frostbite. One guy sat on the rocks and wrote in his notebook - poetry? a journal entry? a to-do list? Plenty of tourists took pictures with towering maples and skyscrapers in the background, and I heard a half-dozen languages in the hour or two we were there.

When we walked to his friend's birthday party, and again when we walked to his house, we raced - and of course he always beat me.

Running around with Leo reminded me how liberating it is to play with a child. His imagination and curiosity were refreshing. I wish we could have playdates more often.