Playtime for Abbie
One thing I need to do more often is expose Abbie to her peers. She meets the neighborhood children occasionally in the park, but otherwise spends all of her time with a daddy who’s big enough to push her around, and twin brothers who are too small to fight back.* It’s important that she play with other kids to improve that expressive speech that’s still stuck on “non-existent,” and to build some social skills that are also stuck on “non-existent.” Otherwise she could grow up to be weird, anti-social, and, worst of all, living with her parents.
When a nearby mother invited me to the neighborhood playgroup, I jumped at the chance to attend. At least I jumped at the chance once I weighed the pros and cons of single-handedly packing up all the children and leaving the house during the twins’ scheduled naptime. I decided that at least Abbie would have fun, and these days if one of our three children is having fun at any one time, then our collective happiness quotient is above average.
The playgroup date turned into a visit to the local public wading pool yesterday. Seeing the wading pool gave me a good lesson on how much things have changed since I was a kid. Back then, a “wading pool” referred to one of those cheap plastic tubs you fill with a garden hose in your yard. A fancier wading pool was the really shallow end of the public pool, or maybe a part of the local lake or river with sub-knee high water and a protective fence that was low enough to hop. This newfangled wading pool was a fancy contraption in a city park. It was large, maybe 50 feet long and 20 feet wide, with a sloping floor that varied the depth between 14 inches and “the bottoms of your feet might get wet.” It had a few water fountains in it, and was surrounded by playground equipment and picnic tables.
I knew Abbie liked the cheap wading pool we occasionally fill in our yard, but I’d never taken her to anything like a pool so I didn’t know how she’d react. I dressed her accordingly with street clothes on top of a bathing suit so I could just strip off the top layer in case she wanted to swim. The boys stayed in street clothes and normal diapers since I had hoped they would nap from our arrival until we left around lunchtime. The park was providing lunch to all the children, but I doubted they’d have pureed peas and Nutramigen for the boys.
We parked the car and walked to the pool, meeting the contact mother on the way. Before I could park the boys’ stroller under a suitably shady tree, Abbie bolted for the pool. I applied the stroller breaks, and ran after her, removing articles of clothing as she continued walking and trying not to be deterred by my fumbling.
With her in the water and the boys dozing under a tree, I sat on a bench and watched. I spent part of the time watching the stroller, first to see if they were still asleep, then to see if they were still happy staring into the stroller shade, and finally to see if I needed to put Ian back in the stroller and hold Tory for a while. Mostly I watched Abbie to make sure she stayed out of trouble. At first I wanted to ensure that she wouldn’t spontaneously lie face down in the water. Once I determined that her water survival instincts were at least on par with the average household pet, I kept watching her to make sure she was playing nice, and that no one was being mean to her. Plus I needed to make sure no other kids made off with that ball we brought form home.
Keeping an eye on Abbie turned out to be harder than I anticipated. In the time I took to check on the boys, locate our ball, and converse with another mom, Abbie could be in a different part of the pool. It didn’t help that everyone else kept moving, which often put another child and/or parent between Abbie and me. I usually found her quickly, but I had to rise off my bench a few times to find her. Once, as my contact mother pointed out, she really disappeared. We both walked around the perimeter trying to find her in the pool with no luck. I started panicking a little until she pointed out that a small child was climbing the slide across the park. I tromped over there to drag her back, swearing I’d keep a closer eye on her.
Otherwise, the visit was successful. Abbie had a lot of fun running around the water, ignoring her ball, and waiting for the ideal time to sneak off again. The boys at least napped for a little while, though I spent half of our visit holding someone. By lunchtime, they were ready to go, and so was I. I picked up a lunch for Abbie, but it wasn’t helpful in feeding anyone. Besides lacking formula or liquefied solids, there was little that Abbie would eat. It had a turkey sandwich, but Abbie is morally opposed to sandwiches, as well as any meat besides ham and hotdogs. She’ll eat carrot sticks like those in the lunch, but they have to be cooked. She’ll usually eat apples, but she decided the included apple was the throwing kind. She did enjoy the chocolate milk, though.
I packed up the rest of the lunch for myself, and we headed back home. The boys calmed down as soon as the car pulled out, and I drove fast so I could feed them before they changed their minds. I know Abbie enjoyed her time at the pool, though she did more running than conversing. We’ll have to work on those social skills at the next playgroup.
* For now.
When a nearby mother invited me to the neighborhood playgroup, I jumped at the chance to attend. At least I jumped at the chance once I weighed the pros and cons of single-handedly packing up all the children and leaving the house during the twins’ scheduled naptime. I decided that at least Abbie would have fun, and these days if one of our three children is having fun at any one time, then our collective happiness quotient is above average.
The playgroup date turned into a visit to the local public wading pool yesterday. Seeing the wading pool gave me a good lesson on how much things have changed since I was a kid. Back then, a “wading pool” referred to one of those cheap plastic tubs you fill with a garden hose in your yard. A fancier wading pool was the really shallow end of the public pool, or maybe a part of the local lake or river with sub-knee high water and a protective fence that was low enough to hop. This newfangled wading pool was a fancy contraption in a city park. It was large, maybe 50 feet long and 20 feet wide, with a sloping floor that varied the depth between 14 inches and “the bottoms of your feet might get wet.” It had a few water fountains in it, and was surrounded by playground equipment and picnic tables.
I knew Abbie liked the cheap wading pool we occasionally fill in our yard, but I’d never taken her to anything like a pool so I didn’t know how she’d react. I dressed her accordingly with street clothes on top of a bathing suit so I could just strip off the top layer in case she wanted to swim. The boys stayed in street clothes and normal diapers since I had hoped they would nap from our arrival until we left around lunchtime. The park was providing lunch to all the children, but I doubted they’d have pureed peas and Nutramigen for the boys.
We parked the car and walked to the pool, meeting the contact mother on the way. Before I could park the boys’ stroller under a suitably shady tree, Abbie bolted for the pool. I applied the stroller breaks, and ran after her, removing articles of clothing as she continued walking and trying not to be deterred by my fumbling.
With her in the water and the boys dozing under a tree, I sat on a bench and watched. I spent part of the time watching the stroller, first to see if they were still asleep, then to see if they were still happy staring into the stroller shade, and finally to see if I needed to put Ian back in the stroller and hold Tory for a while. Mostly I watched Abbie to make sure she stayed out of trouble. At first I wanted to ensure that she wouldn’t spontaneously lie face down in the water. Once I determined that her water survival instincts were at least on par with the average household pet, I kept watching her to make sure she was playing nice, and that no one was being mean to her. Plus I needed to make sure no other kids made off with that ball we brought form home.
Keeping an eye on Abbie turned out to be harder than I anticipated. In the time I took to check on the boys, locate our ball, and converse with another mom, Abbie could be in a different part of the pool. It didn’t help that everyone else kept moving, which often put another child and/or parent between Abbie and me. I usually found her quickly, but I had to rise off my bench a few times to find her. Once, as my contact mother pointed out, she really disappeared. We both walked around the perimeter trying to find her in the pool with no luck. I started panicking a little until she pointed out that a small child was climbing the slide across the park. I tromped over there to drag her back, swearing I’d keep a closer eye on her.
Otherwise, the visit was successful. Abbie had a lot of fun running around the water, ignoring her ball, and waiting for the ideal time to sneak off again. The boys at least napped for a little while, though I spent half of our visit holding someone. By lunchtime, they were ready to go, and so was I. I picked up a lunch for Abbie, but it wasn’t helpful in feeding anyone. Besides lacking formula or liquefied solids, there was little that Abbie would eat. It had a turkey sandwich, but Abbie is morally opposed to sandwiches, as well as any meat besides ham and hotdogs. She’ll eat carrot sticks like those in the lunch, but they have to be cooked. She’ll usually eat apples, but she decided the included apple was the throwing kind. She did enjoy the chocolate milk, though.
I packed up the rest of the lunch for myself, and we headed back home. The boys calmed down as soon as the car pulled out, and I drove fast so I could feed them before they changed their minds. I know Abbie enjoyed her time at the pool, though she did more running than conversing. We’ll have to work on those social skills at the next playgroup.
* For now.
posted by Matt at
11:26 PM
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