Painting Party

It's been awhile! I apologize for not writing, especially after I mentioned how much I hate it when someone stops writing for a few days and you wonder what's going on and if they're going to write ever again. I've been pretty busy but I've also been having trouble finding the motivation. Normally I can sit down and find something to blather on about but I tried that one day and it felt like I was talking out of my ass. It just didn't flow, just didn't seem natural, so I let it go. 

I am inspired to write this afternoon because Jr and I went to this week's play group in the park this morning. I am SO HAPPY with how it went this time. We arrived 10 minutes early so we were the first mommy-daughter team to arrive. In retrospect, I wonder if this helped Jr get comfortable. Last week we were one of the last people to arrive so when we strolled up to the play mats there were a lot of people. I'm sure it was overwhelming for her. Today people trickled in little by little so she probably got used to the crowd a lot easier. 

She was much friendlier this time, although I did have to stop her from trying to take toys from a little girl named Kaya. Every time Kaya picked something up, Jr was right there about to snatch it out of her hands. Jr was doing the same thing to her boyfriend Peter but he's so blasé I knew he wouldn't care. 

I actually couldn't believe how at ease Jr seemed to be. She was crawling all over the place, sitting in front of other babies, poking them and talking to them. It was like she was a completely different kid! All I had to do was keep eye contact with her when she went off on her own and wave to let her know I knew where she was and that it was okay.

At one point she started fussing but I took her beloved frog and suess and held her close in my lap for a few minutes. It's like she needed to recharge her batteries or something. 

Then it was painting time! All the babies stripped down to their diapers and received a huge piece of cardboard and pools of (washable) paint on it to play with. Jr actually got pretty into it. The only difficult part was getting her cleaned off when she had had enough. Like most infants, when Jr is done, she's SO done and is ready yesterday to move on to the next thing. In this case it was going over to other people's cardboard pieces to see what they were doing and touching other people's stuff. We parents were clearly forewarned that it would be a messy day so everyone was pretty good about it except this one mom who exclaimed that she got orange paint on her shirt. Orange. On her shirt. (She said it just like that.) Get a grip lady!

I think the best moment of the morning was when everyone else was still painting with their kid and Stacy, the facilitator, had put on some music. Jr sat in the middle of the blanket in only her diaper, speckled with (dried) paint, bopping along to the music, trying to snap her fingers and twisting her body to and fro. It was like she was in her own little world. I savored it like a delicious Slurpee on a hot, dry Manitoba summer day. Thanks, God!

By the time we were singing the goodbye song Jr was still pretty happy. She didn't even want to leave when I strapped her in her stroller. Yes! I pray next week and all the weeks to come will be the same.