A simple night out in the park (it is easy to entertain kids!)

I once lived in Melbourne for 2 years to study. During that time, I pretty much enjoyed the city which is known as ‘The Garden City’ thanks to so many parks around it. In any season but especially in spring and summer, I always found myself spending some time in any parks at any corner of the city. And almost every time I wish that Jakarta had such lovely parks, especially when I looked at families with their children playing to their hearts content in the park – and not in the malls.

When my baby was born, my husband and I have somewhat sworn to ourselves that we would not take her to the malls until she was at least 3. We both believed that it would not do any good for our baby to experience the crowd, dust, and noise of the malls. So we began to search for the ‘best’ park to take Tara around when she was around 3 months old.

The first park that we went to for a stroll with her was the Botanical Garden, in Bogor. We used to spend hours in this park, enjoying the cool morning breeze, the sounds of the ducks, and the morning mist amidst the trees. We used to hit the road at around 6.30, and went home 3 hours after that. But of course we could only do this during the weekends. And along with the hectic schedule that my husband had on weekdays – he got more and more tired to push himself up that early on a Saturday or Sunday morning, so we got on to other parks.

When Tara was 6 months old, we got hooked with Monas – the park around the National Monument in the central of Jakarta. At that time, the horse carriages were still allowed in the monument complex. And that was how Tara first got fascinated with horses. At times, we could take her as many as 4 rounds on the carriage, because she just refused to get off it. Sometimes we would bring a ball, so we played with her on the grass. Or we just sat on the grass and watched people. It was so much fun. And this habit went on till one day, the city council decided to ban the horse carriages from Monas (a stupid decision, if you ask me, very stupid). We just could not bear to see Tara’s sad eyes when we took her there after the regulation was operated and found that the carriages were gone, so we stopped going there.

Luckily, there are two parks that Tara also loves so much: Suropati and Menteng Park, both located in Menteng area. So everytime we want to go to a park, we will go to either one of those. Tara used to spend hours chasing the birds in Suropati, while she loves the sandy part of Menteng Park, and she also loves running from one fountain to the other in this park.

Of course Tara now knows malls – who does not if you live in Jakarta, the City of Mall (seriously, I think we have too many, lack of character, malls!. Though apparently there was a survey stating that there is still a lack of mall per square meter if calculated by the number of people living in Jakarta. I think it’s outrageous!). Yet thanks to the habit that we have built since she was a baby, she still appreciates simple trips to the parks. Just like what we had tonight.

I asked her to come and pick me up, because suddenly I just wanted to spend time with her and had a bit of ‘ladies night out’ time. So she came to the office, we went off and in the car I asked her, “Let’s go to Menteng Park, shall we?”. And I was so happy to see her eyes lighted up and she excitedly said, “Yes, yes, yes!”.

We went there, and we did the things that she always does everytime we go there: with no shoes on, she walked and jumped and played on the sandy part of the park where there are kids facilities. Then still barefooted she asked me if we could walk around the park searching for the fountains. And she ran from one fountain to another. At the fountain on the corner of the park – the one facing an intersection, she sat on the stairs facing the road. I sat with her, hugged her and we just watched the cars went by, laughed at silly little jokes that we made to one another, and….simply had a good time (though I also realised how much pollution we both have inhaled by sitting by the road, but what the heck!).

We spent about one hour in the park, roaming around, till she said she wanted to go home. So we went home – and she looked so happy. In the car she hugged me and said, “I love you Mom”. Wow…that really made me flew to Cloud 9!. And to think that she did that only after doing something very, very, simple – just strolled and had silly little time with one another in a simple park.

I always believe that children are easy to please. It all depends on how we build certain simple habit that makes them see that we are there for them and we enjoy that simplicity together. I hope my Tara sees it that way. Seeing her tonight, I know she does. Also, though Jakarta does not have parks as beautiful as Melbourne’s, but I think I can live with it. As long as I can always make Tara sees the other side of life – that there is such a thing called ‘simple and cheap entertainment’ even in a city as pretentious as Jakarta!.