Em and I finally got to the playgroup at the library yesterday. We've been trying to go for a month or two now....the first time I overslept, the second time they were already full. It was fun, it was an hour and a half, when we first got there it was open play time. I had to fill out some paperwork since it was our first time, and Emily was very clingy to me. So then I went and played with her for a bit. Then they had to clean up the toys for story time and to sing a song, and then it was open play again. Toward the end they cleaned up their toys and then had a snack.
I guess this time was a little more laid back since the director had been home sick for a few days and hadn't been to her office to bring in more stuff, so I am anxious to see what a regular day at playgroup looks like. Emily did pretty good, like I said she wouldn't venture far from me, but that doesn't surprise me since she is starting to go through a shy phase. When we went to story time last summer, she left me and scooted off into the middle of the kids on the carpet. I kept looking for her to look for me, but she never did. She seemed very content. This time if I even got out of her sight for a few seconds I could see her scanning the room for me.
I have to say though, made me feel loved. I hope she isn't as shy and anxious as I was as a kid, but I don't think it is a bad thing if she is a little shy. My MIL says her dad wasn't shy at all, which he said he was surprised to hear, because he is kind of shy now. How odd....I grew out of my shyness and he grew into it. She kind of barged in on another kid's time playing with something. It's ok for them to come play with something another kid is using, but it needs to be something that there is more of. This was that toy with the different size donuts that you put on the post. Emily kind of took it over. The other girl looked to be a little older so she kindly let Em play with it. But I was proud of Em that she stacked all the rings on in the correct order. She has that toy at home but I packed it up a while ago with all of her other baby toys, and when she played with it she could never stack them right.
A little boy about Em's age or a little younger tried to take what she was playing with later, which is kind of good. She needs to see how it feels and hopefully learn not to do that to other kids. Other than that she did pretty good, no pushing or hitting, no other toy stealing. This group meets every other week, so I'll try to always take her. I think it will do her a lot of good to maybe learn some sharing, learn to pick up her toys and put them away, and sit quietly for story time.
Most weeks there is always a shorter story time session, so I could take her for that too, or just to play in the kids' section in the library. I cannot believe how much she changes week to week. My MIL mentioned how she seems to be talking so much more, just from a week ago, and how they had conversations all day long when she had her. She's been saying mommy and mama and dada a lot more, actually using it in context when she wants us, rather than just saying it for no reason. Today when my husband got home from work, he got her up and changed her and brought her into bed with me. As soon as they came in the room she exclaimed mommy! Like she was soooo happy to see me. That little buggar just melts my heart.
I of course didn't have my glasses on and she said glasses, glasses. It dawned on me that I probably look pretty strange to her without glasses. I've had them since the 7th grade, but I was embarrassed of them, so I only put them on to see the board and then took them off right away. I didn't start wearing them for real until I was 21, and I got contacts when I was 25 or 26. I go through stages with the contacts. When I was working I wore them most days, and my glasses maybe one day a week. But that was when I had a whole routine to get ready in the morning, so putting in my contacts was part of that.
Once Emily was born, I started wearing them all the time, something I never did before....as in, I didn't take them out at night. I did it on accident one night, and the next morning I was like hmm, it's nice to wake up being able to see. I was also so busy taking care of her, taking my contacts in and out became something I no longer cared to take the time to do, so I typically left them in for almost a week, and gave my eyes a rest for a day or two before putting them back in. It was really nice to be able to get up with her in the middle of the night and not have to fumble for my glasses.
But then after a few months I gave myself a nasty eye ulcer. My eye doctor told me not to wear them to bed, especially since they aren't really marketed for overnight wear. She said even the ones that are really shouldn't be worn continuously. It hurt really bad, the day I finally went to the eye doc I could barely keep my eye open. And I ended up costing myself a lot of money because I just went, forgetting to get a referral from my family doctor first.
So ever since then I barely wear my contacts. I don't see the point of putting them in at 2pm when I am finally getting ready for the day, and then taking them back out later that night. Plus last year I got a really cute pair of frames that I like a lot, so I don't mind wearing them. So anyway, all that to say, I don't really think of myself as a "person who wears glasses" since I never used to, and then I used to wear my contacts more often. But Em probably doesn't remember those few months that I always wore contacts, so to her I probably look bizarre without my glasses on. Just like my dad, my dad has always worn glasses and he looks weird to me without them. He's also always had a mustache since I was born, so it would be very weird if he ever shaved it. I'm 36 years old and I have never seen him in person without a mustache.
The other day when she was at her Nana's house, I got her closet cleaned out. She had like 8 months work of out-grown clothes stuffed in a bag in there. So I got them all sorted and put into totes and in the basement. I also cleared some space to put her hamper in the closet. For some reason when it is full, she likes to pull the dirty clothes out and into her crib. I got tired of having to take all these clothes out of her crib every morning. Her room is pretty small, and there was no place else to put her hamper. I also need to clean out the top shelves of her closet. I don't even know what all is up there. I got her a stuffed animal hammock but I didn't get time to hang it. She has a plastic chain behind her door with clips on it that hold her smaller animals, but she's getting so many, they're taking over the house. So hopefully tomorrow I can get the hammock hung so we can get her friends up off the floor. I'll have to tell people for her birthday, no more stuffed animals!
So the last week I have been following that news story about Noah Chamberlain, the little boy who got lost in the woods. Every day I kept checking for updates, but as the days passed, I knew it wasn't good. If the story was false and something else happened to him, then he was almost certainly dead, and if he really was lost in the woods all that time, with no food or water and only a sweater on cold nights, I knew it was doubtful he could survive more than a few days. But my heart still sank when I read the headline today that they found his body.
He was two, and Em will be two in March. It breaks my heart to think if that was Em, in the woods all by herself, scared, hungry, thirsty and cold, no idea where mommy and daddy are. Reading about bad things happening to children has always been hard, but now that I am a mother and I can at least imagine what the parents were going through, it's so much harder. Especially when the kids are close to Em's age. I know bad things just happen, and they kind of have to or you would never be able to appreciate the good things in life, but I wish children were exempt from that. I wish just by some law or miracle, that nothing bad could happen to kids.
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