Playdates

One of the things that I have learned as a new mom is the value of having a community of mom friends. As a new parent, your free time and ability to hang out with friends changes dramatically. After S&Z were born, I quickly learned how sanity-saving playdates can be. Now that I'm 1-1/2 years into this mommyhood thing, I have developed a great network of mom & kid friends that we get together with regularly. 


This holiday weekend has been jam-packed with playdates. On Thursday we had our friends Miriam and Garrison over to visit. Garrison is 3 months older than S&Z but they're all close enough in age that they play really well together. All of them eventually ended up in the pool together,

Zoe has recently started standing on the edge of the pool in order to get a better view of the street out the window. This makes me nervous, so I got out a step stool. 

Of course everyone wanted to stand on the stool, so eventually I got out a second stool.

When I was cleaning up from the playdate, I noticed there were a bunch of crumbs in the pool. I needed to take out the balls in order to clean up the crumbs. S&Z promptly decided this small bin could also serve as a ball pit. They quickly learned that things were a little squished in there.

On Friday we got together with one of the professors in my research group. Nadine & Viella live in Cambridge, so we headed over to their house following the afternoon nap. Unfortunately we got stuck in 1-1/2 hours of traffic (!!), so our playdate had a bit of a late start. Before we knew it, Viella's daddy, Ozan, was getting home from work. Ozan captivated all the kids' attention with some bubbles. 

This morning we had Wendy, Dave, Sydney & Ivy over for brunch. Derek was sent out to the field last night on a midnight truck, and they ended up getting a late call this morning.  This meant that he didn't get home until 9am, and our friends were arriving at 9:30. I somehow managed to pull a quiche together even without him home - this happened by letting S&Z pull all of the clothes out of their dresser, because it meant that they stayed out of my hair and out of the kitchen after breakfast. Unfortunately I was in such a rush that I didn't snap a picture.

Zoe's new thing is trying to feed other little kids. She gives Silas drinks of water or milk from his sippy cup, and she likes to put food in his mouth for him. Even though she was (more than) a little cranky today, she also tried to feed Ivy. Wendy & I tried to explain to her that Ivy wasn't hungry. I think it might take awhile for Zoe the Hun to realize that she can't always run the show :)

There has also been some mommy downtime this weekend, which is always much appreciated. After I put the kids to bed last night I snuck the baby monitor into the bedroom where Derek was sleeping and went out for a quick dinner with my friend, Iris. Julia is babysitting tomorrow morning so that Derek and I can go out for schmancy brunch to celebrate his (35th!!!) birthday. Monday is President's Day, so I'm planning another great day and having lunch and catching a movie with Wendy. It's turning out to be a great, long weekend!