The Griffin Family Herald: February 2008

I was going to post about Miles’s birthday party today, but something happened that I felt impressed to write about today (I’ll get to the party in a later post). I’ve always believed in guardian angels. I think sometimes God sends actual angels from Heaven down to protect us. Other times He simply uses a person here on earth, sent at just the right moment to help us. Well, I believe the latter happened to me today.

I wanted to take advantage of the spring-like weather we’ve been having and take Miles out to one of the many playgrounds we have here in Denton. I picked one we haven’t been to literally in years. I think I took Miles one time when he was younger and the playground equipment at this particular park just seemed too dangerous for his age, and I decided to wait until he was older. So today I decided to give it a try again. As soon as I drove up to the park, I got a strange feeling. The only person on the playground was a man with a camera and he was moving something around on the slide and photographing it. It seemed odd to me, then I saw that it was a stuffed animal. Well, I thought, he might be a photography student at one of the universities. I’ve seen stranger photo projects in my years in art school, so I didn’t think too much of it. I got Miles out and we headed toward the main playground. As we were walking toward it, there was a grandmother with her grandson, about Miles’s age, ahead of us, already on the playground by this time and swinging. Great, someone for Miles to play with! I also noticed a second man a little distance from me walking toward the playground. He was alone and sat on a bench facing the playground.

The first man with the camera moved to a smaller playground nearby and put the stuffed animal on the slide and snapped away. I kept my eye on him and the other man on the bench. Then when Miles and the other boy ran to the other playground, the man with the camera left. I sat down on the seat of a picnic table next to the grandmother and we began to talk and she commented on the man, and said she wondered why he was photographing that stuffed animal. I told her how I’m a photographer myself and I’ve seen lots of strange projects in school. We were both glad he had left.

Then the woman’s grandson said he wanted to go down to the lake, so in spite of encouraging him to stay here and play with Miles, they headed to the lake. Miles played for a minute on the smaller playground, then ran and climbed on the bigger one, so I followed him. Then the second man on the bench spoke to me. He asked me how old a kid needs to be to play on that playground, which seemed an odd question. My guard was up, but I answered him, saying I thought it was best for older kids. Then he got up from the bench and started walking toward me, still talking. Then he stopped. At this point, Miles went back toward the smaller playground. I turned to look at him and he had a strange look on his face. So I walked toward him and asked him what was wrong and he said “Nothing.” At that moment, the grandmother seemed to appear out of nowhere beside me. She was looking at the man, who had went back to the bench, and she asked me, “Do you feel safe?” I said I wasn’t sure and told her about our conversation. She said how they come to this park regularly and have never seen such creepy people there, and that she had come back up there from the lake because she was worried about me. She said they were leaving because of that man, and would be walking back to their house in the neighborhood, and I said we were too. She asked if I was walking and I told her I had my car. She said she would wait there until I was safely in my car and I said thank you. I went and got our stuff from the picnic table and got Miles’s hand. As I walked passed her, she had her cell phone and said quietly that she was pretending to talk to someone, and that as soon as she had started doing that, the man on the bench got up and began to leave. Very suspicious. I looked and he was heading back the direction we had come from. I picked up Miles and went as fast I could to the car and got us inside and locked in.

I don’t know what that man might have done had that nice grandmother not been there to help me today. I was feeling like something was not right about a man sitting by himself at a playground, but wasn’t listening like I should to my intuition and should have just left right away. That’s when God came in and sent that woman to knock some sense into me. I’m so thankful God has mercy on us when we are foolish about things, like not listening to that still, small voice He gives us. I think He used that ordinary woman as an angel for me today. And it’s appropriate that her grandson’s name was “Gabriel.”

It’s sad that we have to worry about things such as taking our kids to the playground, but I will definitely be more careful about my surroundings and plan to go out when I think more people will be out (although I did think more people would be out today because of the nice weather).

After we left the park, we went to the library, then another playground on the other side of town, the one we usually go to. I think I’ll stick with that one for now, with my guard still up, of course.

I can't believe my little "Boo" is 4 today! ("Boo" is just one of my many nicknames for Miles, which include "Milesy", "Milesy-Boo", "Booh-ba-doo". Don't ask me how I came up with them; I've just always came up with affectionate nicknames, beginning with ones for my cats as a child!). Miles has reached some "miles" stones by his fourth birthday including major progress in progress in potty training and reading (he started really reading back in November). I am so proud of him and absolutely amazed at how smart he is. What an experience it has been to watch this miracle develop from a tiny baby to a "big kid." Without a doubt, the most amazing (and most challenging!) experience I have or ever will have.

Today is Miles's Valentine party at school, so he'll get to have a party on his birthday, but we're officially celebrating this Saturday at Chuck E. Cheese's. Here are some shots from past birthdays:

1st Birthday: