Burke Fall Festival

We had a blind date of sorts yesterday, meeting a friend of Andy's from school and her mother at the fall festival at the Burke Nursery. The kids are BFF and play together quite nicely at school, but her mother and I don't know each other that well so it felt a little blind-date-ish, although clearly we have a lot in common. It was nice talking with her and definitely made me think more outings like that would be fun in the future. Plus, the festival was way more fun when I had an adult to talk to while he had a friend to play with.

It was a nice day to be out -- the weather was sunny, but cool. Plus the festival wasn't that crowded in the morning. It was better for us than Cox Farms this year in that it was smaller and more geared toward the younger crowd with more short slides and climbing stuff than lots of big tall slides. Not to mention the exciting hay ride that doesn't have any hay either on the tractor or the bed (why not just call it a tractor ride?) I figure Andy has another year at this festival before he's totally bored with it

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.