Playdate with a childhood friend

Its crazy to see how your life has changed when you have experienced life together with a person... for instance, my best friend in elementary school moved schools a couple of times, moved to a different city and here we are still finding time to hang out and have OUR kids play together.

It's always a little weird at first knowing what to do for the first playdate because you aren't sure how your kids are going to interact with their kids.  Its usually safe to go to a public place, neutral ground, incase all hell breaks loose... which, with small children is always a possibility.

Our plan was to meet at Marie Catrib's (YUM!) and have lunch together with the fam, and then hit up the children's museum.  Neither one of us life in GR but we haven't been to the CM in quite some time and she has never been, so it was worth the drive.  Marie's was PACKED.  I should have known, because it always is!  There was at least an hour wait and with 5 children under 4 (she has 2 and our 3 crazies) that was just not a good idea.  So, we got take out and had a picnic instead.  The weather was beautiful and then when the kids were done eating they where able to run around while we finished eating and chatting a bit.

We went to the CM, which we hadn't been to in a long time and they had changed everything around!  They have this huge construction place on the first floor and Hadleigh and Tristan played in that for a long time while Reeg played in the Wee Zone.  Gaetan had Lucy most of the day because she was the one who was running around and Alecia and I got to talk because the older two played nicely.  Norah was a champ and after eating she fell asleep in the stroller, so that meant that I didn't have to wear her all day (which I was prepared for!)  My back thanked her for that... and she actually slept the entire time except for at the very end where she woke up and wanted to eat again.  It was OK because the CM was getting ready to close anyway and Alecia needed to get going home, so everything was perfect timing.

Dude helping make their pirate ship

Part of their new construction exhibit

She loves the bubbles

The pirate ship complete!

A Lucy original

This is the reason why she had to change her shirt... she loved playing with the water fountain but then she drenched herself and I didn't have an extra shirt so she ended up wearing Lucy's onesie without it buttoned at the bottom...

She got to a point where she was so tired that she would just press the buttons on the elevator and sit down for the ride

This was when she had a bit more energy and liked to climb like a monkey for the ride

Lucy helped make this!

We talked about so many things... it was awesome.  And all the things that we talked about we agreed with each other... It's nice having another Mother who shares the same views as you pretty much down to the T.  You can bounce ideas off each other and ask why they would do something and what has worked for them.  I hope that we really can get together again this summer... more than just one more time.

We had an interesting time with parking.  We were so used to having Gaetan's parking pass at CC to work but apparently they updated their system so that means no more parking for us unless he teaches there again soon... :(  So, we parked in the student parking ramp and I thought that it said that they didn't take credit cards, but who doesn't take credit cards now a days?!  Well, as we were leaving it turns out that they don't take credit cards and it was getting close to 5 and I didn't know where the closest bank was within walking distance... I was worried that we were going to be stuck in the ramp!  Unfortunately we couldn't just find an ATM because I don't know the PIN to our debit card... so I quickly called Alecia to let her know and she said that she had cash for the ramp and luckily for us she had enough to cover what we owed too.  So, that means we owe her $$ so we'll have to get together again so I can at least pay her back :)

She was so tired that she fell asleep eating her roll from lunch

Lucy passed out before we got to the highway... she played really hard with Papa.  And Dude said that he had a lot of fun with Hadleigh.  After lunch while they were playing 'chase you' and giving hugs... it was adorable.

I had such a good time.  I am thankful for old-new friends :)

JVG