Thursday, August 19, 2010

Playdate fun: long long long post

I have dreams of being an awesome blogger. One that can put a paragraph and a picture together in a few seconds and voila! Blog at least every other day. You'll notice, I go in spurts. The honest reason is because I am L-A-Z-Y about downloading pics to the computer. I don't know why. You know how you don't mind unstacking the dishwasher, but you hate folding clothes? Or you love to cook, but hate to do dishes? Or dusting isn't so bad, but you'd rather get a root canal than go through your mail and pay bills? Or is it just me? Anyway, downloading pics, like one of the easiest things to do, seems to be under my folding clothes, dishes, mail and bills, section. So if you see a nice run of blogs, every day or every other day. You can bet your life savings, that I had recently downloaded a month of pics at once.

We have also been having a little bit of what I'm afraid is the Terrible 21 months. Rylan has pretty much dropped all words but "MOMMY!" and "NO!" lately. This led me to go have his ears checked, just in case his ear tubes were clogged and I was blaming his terrible two-ness on his wordlessness. All is well in the ear drums. Turns out, Ry has other things on his mind then talking right now. He babbles constantly. And he's added an "OH" to all his "no's." He walks/runs around yelling "OH NO!" quite a lot these days. We had some days where I didn't know whether to call time-out his new home, or tackle him, but it seems (knock on large piece of wood) that we've reached the calm AFTER the storm. We had a great weekend with hardly any time-outs, and I've had 2 good days this week of my sweet, loving kiddo back. He actually went with me to Burlington Coat Factory, Olive Garden, and Sam's yesterday with nary a scream, bellow, or holler. There was a rather large 4 berry sundae at Sam's that we shared, might have helped.

On another subject we are 33 weeks pregnant. Almost 34. And guess who isn't on bedrest for premature labor???? ME ME ME!!!!! I still have about 947 contractions a day. My pubic bones have prematurely split (something that is supposed to happen during labor, not 8 weeks early) and I have a slight limp, but hey beggars cannot be choosers (or preggars cannot be choosers?). As long as my cervix (men stop reading) remains closed, I get to play, and drive, and be a (semi) helpful wife and mother. And that means the world to me.

On a cuter subject, Ry and I have had some awesome playdates. I seriously love BOTH of my playgroups. In fact we went to two last week AND hosted one here at the house. The one in East End (MOPS-Mother of Preschoolers) is kind of on hiatus right now, but they do have monthly get togethers. We did go to a wonderful get-together at the church that hosts MOPS. Instead of their planned playground trip (read: hot, miserable and last time Rylan got BIT), they opened their church gym, threw about 10 balls in there, blew up a big bounce house and a little bounce house, and had animal cracker yumminess. Rylan ran and ran and ran. With a smile the whole time. There are moments, lots of moments, that I wonder if I'm any good at this Stay-at-home thing. Then I take him to this playdate and watch him run in pure bliss, and I'm glad I did. I regret that I have no pics though. You see, they didn't have chairs for the moms. So I sat on the floor. And if you've ever been 32 weeks pregnant, you know that getting up off the floor makes you look like a turtle that has flipped on its shell. All arms and legs in the air grasping. So, I just stayed put and watched my boy run with wild abandon.

We went to my new friend Ashley's house for a breakfast playdate. It was really called Muffin Monday, but I cheated and made it cinnamon roll Monday. I have discovered a cinnamon roll recipe that I can use my bread machine with. I do believe their official name is Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls. They are so simple and turn out good everytime. I'll post the recipe in another post, so it doesn't get lost with all my future pics.

ANYWAY, Ashley is the hostess with the mostest and her house was so fun that we played and played and played, until like 3pm when the kids were all but begging for a nap. She even let Rylan And Lily get in her daughter's crib and have a jumping good time AND let them suck on her daughter's extra paceys. Rylan and his friend Lily are going through a 21month old pacey adoration phase. They'll get past it.
(Remember my note about being lazy and not downloading pics? This particular day, I was too lazy to actually get my camara out, so these photos come to you, courtesy of Michelle, master of all that is quick blogging.

This is neither Rylan's cup (note princess decor) nor Rylan's pacey. Klepto.
A moment of sheer bliss. Well, for Lily and Rylan. Aubrey and Addie look like they could do without this activity.
Rylan smiles for other mamas!!!!!! Love this pic
Maybe we should wonder why Rylan is so excited about being in bed with a lady?
Sharing means caring.

My friend Kelly had a bbq for her husband. Rylan saw somebody get in the cooler and hand a friend a beer. He decided this was the job for him.


We've also discovered that The Church At Rock Creek, which is neither Catholic like Ry and I, nor near a rock creek that I've seen, has this enormous room full of tubes and slides and all kinds of crazy fun. They don't card you at the door for proof that you are a "Creeker" and CATHOLIC doesn't appear on my forehead when I enter. They just simply let you walk in and let your child play with wild abandon. There is even a toddler area and nets and a mini slide and STARBUCKS!!!!!!
Addi: "you go down this way"
Madaline "no its way more fun to go UP the slide!"

Lily and her beloved bouncy ball. Well, it was somebody's bouncy ball till our group got there, then it was either Lily or Rylan or Madison's ball. That's how we roll. (get it, roll)
He only smiles for Michelle's camera
And last but, not least, was our outing at Whole Foods. See, part of why its helpful to join a playgroup is because you meet other moms, have adult conversations and provide your child with stimulating entertainment and teach them social skills. Another good thing about playgroups is that you find out all kinds of places to take your kid. Seriously, there are only so many trips to Chick-fil-A playplace, library, and the park you can take before they get old and your little boy just stares at you like, "this, again?" When you join a playgroup, you find out that non denominational churches have huge rooms with tubes that you can play at for free. You find out that there are train tables to play at for free at Barnes and Noble. There are a million more parks than you ever knew about. There are lots of places to eat free. There are lots of places to pay just a little and have uber fun. AND there are story times at all bookstores, at all libraries, AND at a little health food store called Whole Foods.

Previously, Whole Foods was a store that I went and gazed and browsed until I picked out the one to three items I could afford. Health food ain't cheap. Its such a neat store, with all kinds of fun things to look at and smell and such. Well, it turns out, on Fridays they have story time. With a whole play area I never noticed and a farm scene and a lady that wears overalls and does farm themed songs. AND they provide a healthy snack for the kids after. Totally fun. Rylan wasn't so much INTO the book reading, as much as he was into playing to the side and handing toys to all the other kids. But, he didn't make noise and didn't run off, so I considered the day a success.

1 comment:

  1. Know why you don't take five BILLION pics and then download 'em to your PC asap? It's because you're normal and well adjusted, and people like me are anything BUT. Sigh.
    Oh, and that's Lily's SPECIAL juice-only Tinkerbell cup that Rylan's got above, and when I showed that pic to Lily, she literally howled and clawed at the computer screen to try & get it back. So much for that sharing means caring crap. :)

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