Easter Weekend 2026

Terri Tomoff
Apr 5
3 min read

My hope is that you, my reader, had a wonderful Easter Day and weekend! Our holiday started Thursday, when Hubby Bill and I were needed in Richmond, Virginia, for Bodie Babysitting duties, aka, Playground Playmates and more.

Since Bodie’s parents had to work all day on Friday, we were actually the daycare coordinators for our 2-year-old tyke grandbaby. After getting him ready for the day, feeding him breakfast, and packing a bag (his mother helped), we headed to the most amazing playground I’ve ever been to, Soar365.

According to the opening paragraph on their website, this foundation was established in 1954 to help kids with disabilities. They have done remarkable work as stated below;

Who We Are

SOAR365 is a Virginia non-profit created in 1954.

Our founding families dreamed of a better way to care for and support their loved ones with disabilities. We’re still committed to building a world where people with disabilities play, work, socialize and thrive as part of their local community.

Able-bodied, children with disabilities, and all children are welcome and can use the playground, and Bodie was no exception as he ran like a wild man to all the equipment, slides being his favorite thing in the park for close to two hours.

I did not see anyone biting, fighting, or pushing and shoving by any kid the entire time we were in this awesome place, even after a large yellow school bus dropped off at least 50 people. Frankly, the experience was magical.

The next day, we went to another playground 🛝. This time, “The Best Daughter” and the Bodie man accompanied (we walked), the now-called Playground Groupies, to a church playground outfitted with faded plastic equipment, plus a basketball net and two beat-up balls to ‘try’ and play on the newer church asphalt parking lot. Bodie is wild about basketball and ran straight to the balls as soon as we got him out of his stroller. At this point, Bill and I were now two for two - days in a row - going to children’s playgrounds.

I don’t think I’ve purposely gone to a playground two days in a row in over 45 years. One of my summer jobs while in college was working for the City of Cleveland Playgrounds as an instructor. My title was, in fact, playground instructor. I used a big red wagon with all my arts and crafts, bats and balls, and other playground stuff, and schlepped it to Plymouth Playground in my neighborhood. It was a fairly robust program, a daycare of sorts, for some of the working parents in the neighborhood.

I worked from 10 am to 5 pm and made maybe $6.00 an hour. Even on rainy days, I had to show up, and we didn’t have a shelter at my playground. My mom would let me take the family car to sit in if the rain was really bad and going to be hanging out for the whole day.

While Bodie was running from one faded plastic slide to another faded plastic slide, I couldn’t stop thinking of the big steel slide at Plymouth Playground. That was quite tall and scary for any kid, big or small, and the slope was so fast and deep that kids would tumble from the drop at the very end of the slide, on many hot days also burning their behinds on the metal. Those were the days! I’m sure all those slides have been removed from every single playground across the land. They were definitely a liability!

What great memories we are creating with Bodie - on any Richmond playground!

Oh, the last two photos are what we needed to do after all the excitement (an hour apart in the napping department).

Sorry, these photos are a day late. Either my phone wasn't cooperating or the WIX site wasn't cooperating.