Oh my

See the picture of the playground to the left? It's a public playground in McLean called Clemyjontri and all I can really say about it is, "Wow." It's a park that is built to be handicapped accessible, but it's just so darn awesome that half of Fairfax County was there at 10 a.m. this morning even though this is virtually no shade at the park and it was nearly 90 degrees and humid, even that early.

The problem with the park though is it's, well, too big. There was so much to see that Mo and I spent most of the time trying to keep an eye on where the kids had run off to so we didn't really get a chance to visit. Course, it was hot and sunny so there really wasn't a good place to sit and visit.

We did go on the carousel in the middle of the park. Andy quite adamantly said he didn't want to go, but I did force him to sit on the seat with me. After initial protests, he did like it, but I am growing tired of being the lady forcing her kid to try the moon bounce, the slide, the pool, the carousel, etc.

This is bringing me to a bit of a dilemma. I want Andy to feel comfortable and not force him into situations that scare him. But at the same time, I find myself wanting to just make him try something before he decides it scares him. I know, he'll get there at his own pace, blah, blah, blah, but I find myself irritated as I watch all his friends just jumping right in with both feet, so to speak. I appreciate his caution; it certainly makes for fewer trips to the emergency rooms at the moment. I just hate to think he's missing out on something his peers are doing just because he doesn't want to give it a try.

On a completely different side note, Andy and I took a walk last night and ran into a neighbor that we regularly see on our walks. He's a nice enough guy, is about my age and has two kids under four, much like we will have eventually (all though not soon enough is this heat!) As we talked, I mentioned that I was 5-6 months pregnant. His answer, "I thought you had put on a lot of weight."

Seriously, I know I've gained weight, I really do, but was that necessary? Asshat.

Fall Festival

We went to the fall festival today with Andy's playgroup where, luckily, our friends Mo and Mia were going as well with Mia's school. It was unusually hot for October in Virginia (high 80s) and you can tell from how sweaty we were. Andy is proving to be a careful sort -- he didn't want to ride any of the slides "too scary" making the visit sort of a waste since a lot of the festival is riding the slides. I did force him against his will onto the hay ride, which he did like once we got moving, but it took some convincing. His favorite part was driving the tractor and climbing up hills, well, the ones that weren't "too high."

Let the embarassment begin

Our friends invited us over for a kid-friendly New Year's Eve. It was hysterical to see the kids, most of whom go to bed at 8 or 9, start to get super hyper as the evening wore on. We didn't stick around to midnight, mostly because my stomach still hurts and I was tired of having to tame it while out. The funniest was when Andy and Mia starting hiding in a closet. She had been trying to be friendly all night, wanting to hold his hand (he had her on "ignore" as her father said) and kindly offer him snacks. During the closet game, we started joking about kissing and then they did pose for us a few pecks. Just hysterical to watch and the adult jokes did abound, as you can imagine.


Oh, and if you're wondering why the kids are wet, we'd had them on the back porch lighting sparklers in the rain. The kids loved the sparklers and were careful not to burn themselves (or us). I loved that I finally got them out of my house. I think I bought them when we moved here in 2003. I was surprised they were still sparkly.