Observation Assignment

Place: Zilker Park Playground

It's the middle of the afternoon and the park is crowded. One family is sitting on the curb near me. They have three daughters and are latino. The young girls, who look about early elementary school age and are dressed in brightly colored leggings and t-shirts, babble in Spanish to each other and to their parents as they jump on and off the curb. A young man and a young woman playing with their baby son who looks no older than one. The baby is wearing a light blue shirt with a whale appliqué on it and dark blue stripped cotton pants. He's also barefoot. Even though the baby's parent's both have dark hair and olive skin, he is fair, with blue eyes, pale skin, and fine blonde hair pulled back into a tiny ponytail. He toddles around on the rubber surfacing with the help of his father, his mom is trailing behind. The baby climb's up onto the concrete seal statue put next to the smaller playground. The father scoops the baby up and sits him on the seal's head. The baby poses as the father whips out his iPhone to take a picture. I turn back around, there are older children playing on the big playscape and the vintage fire truck that the city repurposed. A scruffy, possibly homeless, man plays the toy marimba farther away. A woman and her daughter, who's wearing a pink shirt and a pink polka dot skirt, are sitting on a blanket on the grass that surrounds the playground, eating a picnic. Three adults lead a boy, about 6, across the playground. Two of the three adults appear to be his parents, and the other, a photographer. As they walk past I hear the photographer say "over here would make a good picture..." A young man wearing baggy denim shorts and a baggy red t-shirt walks up to me and asks if I'm "waiting for someone or somethin'" and I tell that I am. "Oh, okay." He responds and walks away back to a group of other guys his age.