Studio Grow

It can be hard, on these cold wintry mornings, to keep two restless, bored kids from causing each other bodily harm. Often, the best thing to do is just get them out of the house to burn off some energy and distract them from each other. Since I hate shopping, and my girls have no interest in food, things like eating out or heading to the mall just don’t do it for us. There aren’t many options when it isn’t nice enough weather for a park outing, but one great alternative near us is a place called Studio Grow: http://www.studiogrow.com.

It’s an indoor play space, geared toward the toddler thru five-year-old set, with just about every activity you can imagine. I just spent three hours there with the girls, and the only reason we left after three hours was because they were closing for the day. The girls could’ve gone on playing there forever. During those three hours, the girls danced, painted, made play-doh art, put on a puppet show, listened to story time, climbed on a jungle gym, rode these little cars down a coaster-like slide, played with dinosaurs, trains, blocks, and farm animals, read books, dressed up, played with dolls and prepared pretend food in their favorite “kitchen room,” experimented with gears, stamped, colored, glued, and a bunch of other activities that I was too busy socializing with the other moms to notice. Really, there’s no other place quite like it around here, where kids can be kids, busily and safely, and the messy arts and crafts aren’t in my house or on my carpet, where they can make new friends and so can I, and where I leave with two reluctant but very tired kids who actually nap (well, one napped anyway).

If you haven’t been, and you live in the Bay Area, it’s worth checking out. They have one in Berkeley and one in Concord, and both are owned by the nicest brothers-in-law you’ll ever meet. Your kids will thank you for it.

Horses

When I was a little girl, I wasn’t so much into dolls and playing house and other girlie activities as I was into horses. I had a collection of Breyer brand horses (http://www.breyerhorses.com), the hard plastic kind that were designed to look quite realistic. My mother recently found my collection under her house, and brought them down when she was visiting this past weekend. The girls divided them equally (there are 10 in all) and spent the entire day making up little horse adventures and having little horse conversations (think: lots of neighing and whinnying, mixed in with English translations of these sounds).

String Bean’s style of playing is pretty rough, with horses jumping around each other, crashing into each other, and yelling at each other before they run screaming away from some invisible monster or evil witch. But Peanut’s horses are quiet types that eat together, go for walks together, and give each other kisses before laying down to sleep. She takes her time to pet each horse, talking to them in soothing tones as she cares for them, and each horse already has a name. Peanut’s version of horse play is exactly the same as mine was as a child, and it takes me back to watch her. In those quiet moments, as I replay my own happy childhood memories while watching Peanut creating her own, I’m reminded of another great thing about motherhood.

There are so many insignificant little moments from my childhood that I’ve forgotten over the years, silly little games I used to play, joyful songs we used to sing in preschool, quiet moments where I felt completely content with the world around me. Seeing Peanut totally entertained in her own little world is a nice way to go back to those forgotten moments. So often since having kids I’ve felt like their existence somehow saps my brain, making me forgetful, distracted, much more absent-minded than I ever was pre-kids. It’s nice now to see that they also have the ability to rekindle my memory, and refill all of those empty spaces in my mind that they’ve created these past few years.

Flying Solo

I’m halfway through hubby’s 16-day business trip, a hectic tour of four European countries and I forget how many cities. It’s the longest we’ve been apart, the longest the girls have gone without him, and, so far, we’re surviving, despite Peanut being sick and keeping me up all night twice, and not getting my preschool-time morning breaks, since she was too sick to go to school. I’ve called in reinforcements to make sure I have a few hours to myself every few days, including having my mom visit for two days, and going to visit her for two days, and aside from that I’ve just got a “let it slide” attitude going.

The other day, when String Bean was supposed to be having her quiet time so her sick sister could nap, but she kept making too much noise, I just laid down on her bed with her for a half hour, sharing my favorite memories of her as a baby (her favorite story is the way the NICU nurses called her “princess” from day one. They meant she was a high-maintenance baby, but she thinks they were predicting that she’ll marry a prince, live in a castle, and get to attend magical balls). The laundry’s piling up, the dishes are only getting done once a day, the dog isn’t getting walked, and we’re out of all groceries except milk and Annie’s macaroni and cheese, but I’m not worrying about any of it right now. We’re having lots of cuddle time on the couch and making up silly games and playing dress up, trying to keep String Bean engaged while Peanut gets some much-needed rest, and I try to fend off whatever bug she has with taking Emergen-C and washing my hands every ten minutes.

Hubby returns a week from today, is home for a day, then leaves again on another business trip. By then, we should have this whole flying solo thing down to a science. At some point I will have to break down and hit the grocery store, and do at least one load of laundry. But not today. Today we have some coloring books that need our attention, and a make-believe ball to attend in our princess gowns.

Greeting Neighbors

My girls love to run around the front yard. There’s nothing out there but a patch of drying grass and a wide concrete driveway, but they think it’s as good as any park. While it’s lacking the swing set and riding toys of the back yard, it has the advantage of giving them a front row seat to the world. They can watch the neighbors come and go, see the cars (and occasional fire trucks, mail trucks, and garbage trucks) driving by, jump up and down with excitement every time someone walking a dog passes by, becoming more excited when the dog actually responds to their squeals.

The other day my two-year-old watched in awe as a woman jogged slowly down the street. The woman was clearly struggling, moving at a reasonably slow pace, but chugging along with determination. My sweet little girl pointed at her and shouted, “Look at that lady, Mommy. She’s running! She’s going so fast!” The woman smiled and waved, and sped up her pace a little.

Our house is on a corner, and the side street is fairly busy, so while the girls spend many hours in the front window watching the street outside, they don’t get as good of a view of the busy street from inside the house as they do from outside. I think this feeling of distance from the goings-on out there might explain why, when they are outside, they don’t realize the people they’re talking about can hear them. When they jump up and down yelling, “Look, that man has a red hat!” and the red-hatted man pauses to wave at them, they erupt into excited peals of laughter, run around the driveway a few times, and then finally get up the nerve to wave back, just as he walks out of view.

The best thing about their obsession with the front yard is that it gets me out there with them. The other day, sitting out front with them, post-naps but pre-dinner, I felt like we were all unwinding from a long busy day. Taking the time to wave at people walking down the street and greeting each neighbor as they returned home from work is a much better way to spend an hour than cleaning up piles of kid toys inside while trying to lip-read the newscaster’s report over the racket of two hyper girls.