Socializing our Children

I had a really nice weekend for the first one of October. The weather was great, and we were able to have the boys do some fun activities and get things done around the house.

On Friday, Gabe spent the night with my MIL because the high school near her house was having their homecoming parade through the neighborhood and on Saturday there was this Joe Gibbs carnival thing going on. Oscar and I just stayed in with Nick and caught up on the TV shows we had recorded from the week.

On Saturday morning, Oscar and I took Nick to gym class, which was our first opportunity to be in class together, which was nice. We went to every one of Gabe's parent-child classes together, but it's difficult to do the same thing when we also have an older child. Nick is still tentative around all of the older children, he's the youngest in the class, but he does all the skills.

After Nick's gym class we went to the mall to pick up my anniversary present (five years on October 30th), and to get Nick a cat from Build-a-Bear. Gabe has an orange tabby that meows and Nick really likes it, so we wanted to get him one of his own. He calls it a "mow". Unfortunately Build-a-Bear no longer sells the orange tabby, so we got him a sparkly snow leopard instead, which Nick approved of. We named it "Meow", since that's what Nick calls it. However, it still does not replace his beloved red giraffe ("raffe").

In the afternoon, Gabe had soccer practice. My MIL and SIL met us at the field with Gabe. Oscar has been roped into being the assistant coach, but I think that helps Gabe to some extent. We're having a hard time deciding if we should keep signing him up for soccer. He's good at all the drills, but when they break up into team to play games, he's too timid to go after the ball if another child has it.

Later in the afternoon we attended a block party organized by our block captain and his wife. Yes, I totally live in that type of neighborhood. Gabe had a great time. There was a treasure hunt and mini pumpkin painting as activities for the kids. They also invited our local (neighborhood) fire department, which was there for the first part of the party. There was also a ton of food. Nick ate an entire corn dog and loved it, even if it took him over an hour to eat it.

However, I only talked to the couple people I knew. One was a girl (and her family) that Oscar grew up with and the other were a couple we met in Gabe's gym class. I was too shy to go and introduce myself to anybody new, even though I wanted to. I don't know what I think is going to happen, but I can't seem to work up the courage to go up to somebody new and say "Hi, I'm Cookie. What's your name?" I feel ridiculous just typing that. And this is why I will never be the head of the P.T.A. Also, why all my friends are in the computer.

On Sunday, Oscar and I tried to take Gabe bowling, but that didn't work out too well. As usual Gabe was excited about the idea of bowling, but wasn't as interested in actually bowling. Also, he ended up spilling his soda everywhere (we let him get root beer as a special treat), which turned into a total meltdown. We left after one game. My score was as bad as usual (I never get above 100).

The rest of the day went better. I got a ton of stuff done around the house. All the laundry. I even organized all my sweaters, and discovered a bunch that I had forgotten about. Also got the boys playroom reorganized and lunches done for the week.

I feel so much more relaxed now that I'm taking an extended break from school. Getting up early to work out doesn't as feel as hard, because I'm able to go to bed earlier. I just feel better. I know I'm going to go back to school in January, because finishing my degree is important to me, but it's really nice to not have to work about homework for a while.