It’s Valentine’s Day!

There is something about being a sahm. It’s a completley new culture I didn’t know existed. Lydia had a playdate today with one of my best friend’s son, Evan. I said PLAYdate. Not playDATE. Just because it’s Valentine’s Day doesn’t mean that my one year old is dating a grown up 17month old!

I got to the mall about 11:00 to meet them. I swear I saw 30 strollers as I walked through one section of the mall. The strollers were packed with shopping bags. Most of the moms had a Starbucks in one hand and a sippy cup in the other. Do they do this every day? Get their kids up and dressed to go to the mall and shop? They need to watch Oprah and get decluttered!

It gets worse. There’s this really cool playground in the back corner of the mall, so no one else is distrubed by our kids’ screams, I guess. My friend and I pulled our strollers into the stroller parking, yes, stroller parking and there were literally 50 kids jumping around in that playground! 50 kids, at least 30 moms/dads/grandparents/babysitters/etc. Where do these people come from?

The best part of hanging out with all these moms & kids is seeing how different we all are. I do not mean that in a politically-correct-embrace-your-differences kind of way. I mean it in a what-is-that-woman-thinking kind of way. Lydia is one year (fine, she’s 13 months) and is just learning to walk. This 3 year old boy (I’m guessing) was yelling at her and telling her to go away because she was on the slide with him. The mom just looked us with a little smile like, “What can you do?” and just let him yell and point at my daughter! I finally moved my daughter away from the little chimpanzee and sure enough, when we found a fun new (quiet) area of the playground, who shows up, but her little stalker. Really, I understand letting kids be themselves, etc. But she’s ONE! Don’t let your 3 year old boy terrorize her!

So, there it is, Lydia’s first Valentine’s Day PLAYdate.