Last Saturday, I took the  boys down to Hollywood Studios for a back-to-school fling. The park was packed with people, but we know the parks pretty well, and are pretty good at navigating the crowds.

After dinner, we stopped by the Honey I Shrunk the Audience playground. It’s a playground themed around the idea that people are smaller than bugs. There’s a giant anthill with a maze of tunnels for  kids to explore, a giant spiderweb to climb around, and a bunch of slides and play structures, all keeping to the theme.

My oldest took my hand as we walked toward it.

“You’re going to play with us, this time, right?”

“I’d like to,” I said. “It just depends on how crowded it is.”

When we got there, though, it was even more crowded than the rest of the park.  “I can’t, big guy. Look at all these kids. I can’t take their space.”

“But other adults are!”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “But they’re all following little guys, just like I used to stick with you.”

He looked really disappointed. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess so.”

“I’ll be fine.” I said. “You and your brother go explore.  Hopefully, next time it’ll be less crowded.”

They charged off into the mass of kids and I settled back to wait.

It’s weird. I always knew that they’d be leaving me behind for things like this, but it never occurred to me that they wouldn’t want to.