jennanddave.com

We just got back from playgroup. Since the weather has been nice the last two Monday's, we've been meeting at a local park. This seemed like a good idea when it was first mentioned, but my kid runs from slide to tunnel to fire truck to swings to slide to fire truck to tunnel and so on and so on the entire time we're there. I spend the two hours running after Henry and staring wistfully at the other mom's who are standing around chatting as their kids play around them or wait patiently for them to finish their conversation. If that's what four years of age is going to bring with it, I can't wait. I don't think I appreciated enough the joy that a room full of toys and kids and a closed door can bring. To me, anyway.

This morning after one and a half hours of non-stop running, Henry spotted a little girl having a snack at one of the picnic tables. He ran over to her and hovered around her, slobbering over her oranges. I got his cereal bar and water from the car and I sat down and reveled in the two minutes of rest. Then with a gulp he was off again, running running running. About ten minutes later one of the other mom's from our playgroup came over and asked if we'd already taken a snack break. I said we had, then took off to catch up with Henry. At some point he noticed the rest of the kids in our group sitting around a picnic table chowing down, so he ran over to them. I hadn't brought any other snack because the kid's been eating barely more than nothing lately so I figured he wasn't going to be interested in much of a snack. I was wrong. He ate almost an entire bag of raisins that had been utterly spurned by the two girls they had been brought for, plus a big pretzel, plus a lot of watermelon. He was acting like he hadn't eaten in twenty years. He was practically crawling over the table to get at everyone's food. I told the other parents that next week I was going to bring Henry lots of different bags of snacks and that I was going to hand them out to the other parents to give to him because he certainly wasn't interested if I was the one offering him food.

After snacktime, we ran over to the music play station at the park where Henry banged on some big plastic drums. Then he ran over to the musical bells and smacked one with his hand. Then he collapsed on the ground and tried to go to sleep. So we came home. Another successful playgroup.