You might remember (since I just posted about it last week) that our good friends moved to a place two hours south of us not too long ago.
Well, despite my despair at maybe never seeing them again (okay, only seeing them once or twice a year maybe), my fears have (so far) been unfounded since we saw them on Saturday and I saw Mary again today.
Of course, it helps when your friend is a killer party planner and her daughter just turned one and your kids are the same age and you know there will be lots of good food involved…
All that makes it easier to say, “Heck YES we’ll be making the two-hour drive down and back!”
So that’s what we did on Saturday–
We drove down to their new digs, partook in all the Sesame-Street-themed goodness, watched Raven get in a pool for the first time (after paying an arm and a leg for a pack of swim diapers), watched a truly epic cake smashing (which made me reminisce on Raven’s anticlimactic birthday cake “experience” with fondness) that required some serious hosing off afterwards, and watched our kid gradually get grubbier and grubbier as she was smeared with sunscreen and grass and a little dirt and strawberries and who knows what else…
The before and after of the hair…
A little story about the pool:
Raven is TOTALLY my kid, complete with super-sensitive “warning light” and all.
Basically, any new experience must be examined, cross-examined, hesitantly touched, prodded, and smelled, and then, if all conditions seem like they are not life-threatening, she will jump in (er, step in slowly).
Matt took the first attempt at trying to get her to play in the pool, with minimal success–
After pulling her legs up to her chest every time he tried to put her down, he was eventually able to coax her into standing in the pool after about ten minutes (while her friend–younger but WAY more spontaneous–splashed and shrieked happily without a care in the world).
Having lived with a sensitive warning light my whole life, I know that sometimes the best way to get over the fear is just to go all in (without leaving too much time to think about it).
So what did I do when it was my turn on pool duty?
I grabbed the kid and plunked her down so she was solidly sitting in the pool and splashed a bunch of water over her so she could get used to the temperature faster.
And about ten seconds in, you’d think she was a natural-born water baby.
Mean mom moves for the win 🙂
Man, I’m sure glad I made friends with people who are so much better at planning parties than I am.
Oh, and some pictures of Emma trying to give Raven “loves” (which she was definitely not too sure about) and one of those typical pictures where the adults look cute and the kids have other things in mind besides looking and smiling at cameras).
Now…how about you guys move back so we can replicate that party
every weekend for the rest of this summer, mmmkay?
