Dear Jen,
Take yourself back to this past Wednesday, and imagine me getting up with a sense of great purpose and importance because this is the day I take the children to Maggie's Place playgroup. I've re-checked the information ten times: it's at 10:00, at "Village Fire Hall" in Bible Hill--a five minute drive away. So as we all know, that means that I've got to book it from the moment my feet hit the floor if I hope to be only five minutes late. I tell Evelyn that we're going to playgroup today, and so now she's excited too.
Gavin doesn't know or care.
I'm so on top of things! I get the kids breakfasted, dressed, teeth and hair brushed (and do it all again for myself--yes that's right, I even remembered to brush my teeth!), pack up my shoulder bag with diapers, water, and back-up snacks (in case their idea of a snack is three cheerios and an ounce of punch), put shoes on my daughter, earrings in my ears (just for a little pizzaz for my debut into Truro society), pick up the baby, and head out the door at 9:55.
This is setting up to be an excellent morning.
We drive up the winding road to the location, which I find without incident, and park in the lot. I haul out my children, walk to the building, and am greeted immediately by a lady at the front desk. I say to her, "I'm looking for the playgroup?" To which she responds, "Oh yes, they usually have that here." (this is the moment I become a bit wary) "Let me go check." She speaks to a lady in the room behind, and comes back a moment later. "Playgroup," she says,
"Was yesterday."
DOH.
Yes yes, I am a dufus. I checked ALL the details ten times, it's true--made sure this playgroup said "Drop-In, no sign up required!"; double checked that it was a 10:00 start and not one of the 9:30 ones; googled the address twice; and I am so sure, looked at the day!!! Where did I go wrong???
It was all very disappointing. I had even put on an outrageously colourful and questionably-matching outfit for the big day...
The silver lining is that there was another playgroup of equal distance from house in the opposite direction on Friday. So we cut our losses and spent the morning at the Victoria Park playground (where Evelyn incidentally found a three-year-old boy to play with for most of our visit there--about which you could tell she was ticked pink. Especially when she started making farting jokes which the boy laughed at. She was greatly pleased. Ah how she misses the glory days with Zach!), and went to playgroup on Friday instead.
So how was playgroup do you ask? It was alright. Picture an elementary school gym FULL of various types of toys: building toys; train toys; animal toys; baby toys; dress-up; puppets; balls; kid-sized school bus-shaped tents--and activities: colouring; gluing; jello-painting; laminated papers with velcro shapes (good idea for a quiet book!). Gavin spent the entire time toddling from station to station--he was so overwhelmed with stimuli! Evelyn found a princess dress and spent the rest of the time prancing around in it, urging me to participate in various games with her. My only complaint is that it is so large it becomes very easy to find yourself in one of those situations where you are entirely alone in a room full of people. You just have to think of it like a park, I guess: if you find yourself next to another mom, think of some unoriginal line to strike up a conversation, and hopefully she comes back next week!
This Wednesday I'm going to the fancy sign-up-on-a-week-by-week-basis Maggie's Place Proper playgroup, which is sign up because the space is much more limited. I am very interested in going to that one. Maybe I'll even venture to wear earrings again. Also I can easily walk to this one, so that's nice!
Oh! I also just thought of something else: we got our first Truro-addressed bill! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS??? Time to get a library card! Yay!
So...rainy season still holding up back in the 'Wack?
Love,
Jacqui
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