mops playdate

there is an official mops (mothers of preschoolers) group through the kids' school that meets once a month.  the mom the school's director introduced me to randomly is one of the primary contacts for the group, has three kids, and her husband was born and raised in waukesha, wisconsin (where we just moved from).  needless to say we had a lot to talk about as we were making small talk.  she mentioned that the mops group was meeting for lunch and then going to a local church to play in their 'playland'.  we had visited the church with the 'playland' and thought that it sounded like a fun way to spend an afternoon so we met up with them today.

as you can imagine, lunch was a little hectic with all of the moms getting their kids situated.  there was another group of moms meeting at the same wendy's and i guess they only have three highchairs in the whole place.  our group was there first and had two of the highchairs.  while one of our moms was in line getting her family's lunch, a mom from the other group came over and asked the kids sitting at the table (without an adult) if they were using the high chair.  when they said, yes, she questioned them about it again saying that she had a "baby" that really needed that highchair (first her "baby" was closer to mason's age than maddux' and, second, she was trying to bully kids 5 and under).  thankfully, one of the other moms from our group stepped in and explained that the baby was in line with his mom (a child under the age of one, who actually needed the highchair to eat lunch).

anyway, i made some small, getting-to-know-you, conversation over lunch.  as best as we could with our children around.  and then we all headed over to the church.

the playland is a pretty impressive indoor attraction.  and it is free as a ministry of the church.  there wasn't really any conversation between the moms once we got there because a lot of the little kids kept getting 'stuck' or scared once they got to the top.  it is nice because this structure is large enough for an adult to easily get up inside and retrieve their child.  thankfully, i was able to only observe and did not have to learn first hand.  madelyn and mason did a great job looking out for each other and sticking together so that i could focus on maddux.  there was a separate, contained area for kids 2 and under, but maddux could not be distracted from the real action of the larger play equipment so i let him spend the bulk of his time walking around the larger structure.  there were a few too many big kids going too fast for me to let him climb up inside, but he didn't seem to mind too much.

madelyn and mason spent the entire hour climbing up to come down the "bumpy slide".  here is a little footage towards the end of our time.

it was nice to get away from unpacking and meet some new people.  i am looking forward to my first mops meeting next week.  they meet in the evening so i will be leaving the kids at home with daddy. love.