The Schwartz's vs Overcoming McDonald's Play Place

So I think I have a bit of a rep for being a little uptight amongst my other mommy friends.  I avoid giving Sarah cookies, suckers, and other sugary treats.  (In fact I offered her a cupcake the other day and she actually said no and didn't eat any of it.  She didn't even lick the icing off the top.)  She has yet to have french fries (unless you count the one she pilfered from me today before I could snatch it back).  I still cut her grapes in half.  I'm distraught over the amount of tv she incidentally watches through out the day.  And before today she had yet to play in an indoor play place like McDonalds.

But I have my reasons for each of these occurances that I feel explains my behavior.  I'm not anti-sugar heavens knows I have a huge sweet tooth which I why I don't keep cookies and other treats in the house.  Suckers, well, suckers are just gross.  They are messy and I don't want to deal with that.  I get frustrated enough that Sarah manages to rub yogurt and fruit juice through her hair at every meal.  Our friend Adam told us once that by the age of 2, potatoes are the most consumed vegetable of toddlers and it's because of the french fry so 1) I'm trying to avoid that statistic and 2) I love french fries and I don't want to share.  As soon as Sarah realizes how yummy they are,well, that's the last time I'll ever get to enjoy my own dadgum french fries!  Call me selfish but considering you get very little to yourself when you're a mom I'm going to hold on to what I can for as long as I can.  Right!  As for the grapes,Sarah chocked on an apple bite once which scared the death out of me so I still cut her grapes because I just don't want to have to hold her over the sink and pound on her back and scoop out her mouth again.  The time it takes to cut the grapes is well worth the time avoided worried my child is about to die.  The TV turns her into a zombie.  She stops whatever she's doing and just stares at it without blinking.  And ball pits at play places---come on, you know kids pee in those.

But it's ridiculously hot here in the summer.  So it was time to brave the play place.  I've tried to the play place once before with Sarah.  But we were at the Chick-fli-a and the play room is very VERY tiny and after Sarah and I got in there it filled up quick with big kids and it overwhelmed me so I scooped Sarah out of there and we headed home.  This time I needed a partner, so I called one of the bravest mom friends I have and asked her to take me and Sarah to McDonalds for her first play place experience.  It also helps that Annie has 4 kids, 1 Sarah's age and 3 older so Sarah would see from Jessie what the play place protocol is, and Addison, the oldest, could help get Sarah around the tubes because heaven's knows my pregnant butt isn't fitting through those tight nooks and crannies to fish Sarah out if she gets stuck.  I love going places with Annie because she is just so laid back and it's very reassuring.  We went to the pool with them once and Jessie was jumping off the edge of the pool into Annie's arms and Annie was dunking Jessie underwater.  Sarah and I had been to the pool a million times before then and I never once thought of dunking Sarah to get her use to going under.  So I learn cool things from Annie.  (On the plus, Sarah is doing great when she accidently goes under water while we're at the outdoor pool in the toddler area.  She just pops back up like it's no big deal.)

We had an awesome time!  Sarah downed her McDouble (Annie only slightly laughed at the fact that I brought a knife from home to cut it up for her).  And then hit the play land like a pro with the help of Addison.  She was such a flurry of activity it was hard to get a picture of her, mostly because the shutter speed on my camera is too slow.  As Sarah climbed up the steps she'd stop at the windows to wave to me and yell, "hi mommy!"  Then she'd disappear in the tubes for a while before I see her crossing the bottom holding Addison's hand on the way to climb back up the stairs after going down the slide.  Every now and then I'd see her pop into a bubble up top.  But I'm sure she kept Addison busy up there going across the tubes to get to the slide to come down and then start all over again.  We both had such a good time we may have to make this a regular occurrence as long as I can talk Annie into it!

And now she's down for what I hope to be a nice, long, productive nap.  I've got a lot of stuff to get done in the nursery because we're hoping to get the new crib set up between today and tomorrow.  Then it's time to start getting ready for Cody.  Only 10 more weeks now before my life changes from being a mom of 1 to a mom of 2.

Oh, and as an added bonus to the play place trip--there was no ball pit so I didn't have to worry about the disgusting things that Sarah was bound to put in her mouth.  Or Sheldon popping out of them, "Bazinga!"

Hi Mommy!