E and Mama's Special Days

E's school had inservice on Thursday and Friday and instead of trying to juggle him around to some other place for those two days, I decided to be decadent and take two vacation days from work and actually stay in town and just do "stuff" with E - E and Mama's Special Days. I had pretty ambitious days planned - I wanted to do everything I imagine stay-at-home mom's get to do with their kids. My plan was:

Thursday:

10am OMSI

11:00am Planetarium Show

11:30am Picnic on the waterfront

12:30pm Trip to the library

1pm Swimming Pool

Friday:

10am Gabriel Park playdate with Maria and Marfie

11am Peanut Butter and Ellie's for lunch

12pm Southwest Community Center Super Swimming Pool

Okay. I learned a bit about over planning and jamming in everything in two days. First, E woke up very grouchy on Thursday morning. "I am grouchy" he actually pronouced. When I would cheerfully chirp, "It's our special day," he would actually shout, "NO IT'S NOT." Great. Not what I imagined for my stay-at-home day. He just needed to eat a bit and wham-o, he perked up like a little flower.

We had a bit of a slow start on Thursday - getting to the science museum by 10:15am (hey, only 15 minutes off). We played and ran around the preschool playroom. We ran to the Planetarium to now miss the show we bought tickets for. I envisioned the two of us kicking back in the dark, plush seats and watching various constellations being pointed out. Sadly, instead of a star show, they were showing the progression of earth in 3-D, surround video, with a lot of lingering on huge ferocious dinosaurs and volcanoes. E crawled into my lap and whimpered. We lasted all of five minutes. We got out of the theater and E declared the whole experience, "way toooo scary." We took his binoculars out to the river and spied on the workers on the submarine, saw a family of ducks and a huge barge go by. I hadn't gotten around to actually making the picnic lunch so I made E much happier by going to Burgerville. Why he prefers the blackberry smoothie to my ground natural peanut butter sandwich is beyond me.

We hit the swimming pool during open play time - not preschool swim - which meant every day camp in the area was there. We abandoned the shallow end and the endless sea of bodies for the quieter deep end where E was actually just as confident. He is really into swimming and though he hates to go all the way under water, he is very comfortable bobbing around. We swam for almost two hours. And though I couldn't get him to nap when we got home, he slept like a rock that night.

On Friday, we had a playdate with baby Maria and Marfie. We hadn't been to the new Peanut Butter and Ellie's yet - still sad that it left our side of town. So we ventured out to SW Portland - to Gabriel Park and then to lunch. I was disappointed by the tiny play structure at Gabriel Park - there are much better places to play in NE. Marfie and I had a good time at lunch but E was a bit freaked out by the other kids and spent more time playing with the garbage can area that looked like a train then the play train set. We were both a bit wrung out by our constant running around so we headed home and skipped swimming. I opened a bottle of Viogneir and E got a pink lemonade. We killed time until THDC (tall house double cup) got home from work and kicked it in the back yard.

So, do I want to be a stay-at-home mom? No. None of us would really be better off than we are with me working - I have the greatest job in the world and E's school helps him learn and experience other people. But, I would like one day a week at home with E. We could do special things together (not all in one day) and have a little more time to talk. I am not sure how to swing that, but it is something to think about trying after the next baby comes.