Are your children safe?

It has come time to write a theme blog. No not about Italy or Germany specifically, but about the crazy things I have observed.
Sunday late afternoon Siggi & Manfred took us to a Harbor Festival. Seems the Rhine river, while it is in Karlsruhe, has a small harbor and as most cities do they create a festival during the summer. We caught this one at the end of the day so food carts were closing up. We happened by the children’s play area and that is where our (Jerry & I) jaws dropped.

Using my Nana eyes I saw the games to be fun and simple and thoroughly enjoyable for the kids. They were free and the supplies/equipment they used was minimal cost to set up.







BUT. . .the lawyer eyes of Jerry went beserk! Here we have children that are jumping off scaffolding onto bed mattresses. No rails, no other padding should they tumble off the mattress. And the scaffolding has nothing to keep the kids from falling off the backside, or even jumping (as I know Kentucky & Korban would want to do) off the back to the tree.




Then there was the wonderful “roly slide” Totally simple with the conveyor belt (as Jerry joked, for Beer cases) and the tubs/bins used in supermarkets. No save guardrails to keep the bin from falling off the rollers.



How about a swing, sounds safe. . . this one looks so old it could be a tin wind up toy from the 1930’s. We have to trust the German industriousness to keeping this little machine in perfect working order despite it’s age.


See the swimming pool full of toys? See any adult around to keep little ones from falling in?


I totally love these cone things. Sabrina said the only thing that causes problems with it is the children will put their fingers over the edge and as they roll around they get smashed.



Jerry and I had a long discussion with our German friends about the American need to sue for simple common sense things we should know better NOT to do.

But I still think these were fun games/toys and want to make some of them!!