Friday's Fun Day!

Yesterday was Ian's day to sleep in and then hang out with Grandma Trish all day. It was an extra special day because Shawn and I met after work and saw a matinee showing of Dark Knight before relieving Trish of her extra long shift.

Not only was the movie amazing, but Ian and Grandma had another fun Friday together. When we arrived home, his bath was running and he dropped everything to run into our arms. Shawn took over his bath while Trish and I promptly ran off to blend a couple of margaritas.

So, this morning, as I sat drinking my morning coffee and reading in the room across from Ian's, I saw his bedroom light suddenly shine from under his door. Then it went off...and then on again. He figured out how to reach his light switch! It's right next to his crib, but it was the first time he'd figured out that he could stand on his pillows and blankets and reach the switch. The next hour was filled with a few minutes of one sided conversation followed by 10 minutes of extreme silence, repeat.

After breakfast, Ian and I got ready and left for our free Gymboree session. I was hoping to involve him in a play group on a Saturday or Sunday to replace his swim lessons at the end of the month. I scheduled him for free trial classes at Gymboree and Little Gym, and the Gymboree session was today. We arrived and put on our name tags, and then set off to try out the play equipment until the class started. It's basically a big room with dozens of mats, play systems, balls, and tunnels. He was most interested in the balls (big shock) and tunnels. To see that after his paralyzing fear of tunnels at my parent's house in December, it reminded me how much he has grown since coming home.

Once the class started, it was obvious this wasn't his cup of tea...or most of the kids there, for that matter. All but one or two of the kids really just wanted to play on the equipment and didn't care much for the efforts of their parents to get them in a circle and follow instructions. Ian was one of them. After a few minutes, I quit trying to corral him and just let him go off and do his own thing. It was free, so hey, if he wasn't into it I might as well let him do what he wanted in the time we had. He had a great time corralling balls into the tunnel and them taking them one by one to the other side.

Toward the end of the class, they brought out a huge parachute and he made a beeline from where we were across the room and underneath, making me think they must do this at school. He was jumping and squealing, loving it. If I could find a class devoted to parachute games, it would be worth the money, but this was just not worth the $70 a month for 1 class a week, especially if he preferred to play independently (like almost all the kids did). Ultimately, we'd accomplish the same result by paying $5 each and go to the Children's Museum near us. They have an amazing play area and we can stay as long as we want....on any day/time. Not just one session a week.

I am going to take him to his free class at Little Gym just to say we did it (and who knows, I might be pleasantly surprised). Shawn also gets a MS discount there, so it might end up being worth it. If not, no big deal.

Next weekend, we plan to go to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle to check out the Butterfly exhibit and Bubblefest 2008. There is also a Children's Museum there and bug and reptile exhibits, so even if the bubbles are lame, we can make it worth a day trip into the city.

A final note to Grandma Trish... We were walking past the ice cream shop today and Ian pointed inside and said Man-Maw (Grandma). He remembered having ice cream with you there. You never forget the really good stuff, I guess!


Enjoy a few pics from the last couple days...

Grandma arrives for another fun "casual Friday".

Ian took a can and pretended to put food in Polli's dish...like he sees me do every morning...

...and then he pretended to feed it to her. He's getting really good at mimicking behavior.

Shawn found a worm in the yard today... Ian wasn't sure about it at first, but finally got up the nerve to touch it.

Woom-T.