So we had a great Saturday today-- in parenting terms, this means that we thought of a lot of super fun activities that Dylan would enjoy because our adult Saturday activities BD (Before Dylan) of day drinking, napping and watching movie marathons are now just fond memories (sigh). Our new weekend goal is to try and wear Dylan out each day, just like the constant buzz of activity he's used to at daycare during the week when he comes home thoroughly pooped out, which hopefully leads to more sleep at night.
In the spirit of our new weekend theme of 'Tire Baby Out,' we joined our local My Gym and took Dylan for his first Tiny Tykes & Waddlers class this morning. My Gym is basically like a large gymnasium specially customized for active babies, toddlers and young children. It's just the place I've been looking for to take Dylan somewhere where he can just let loose, have fun, and not worry about getting sunburn, bug bites, eating wood chips, getting cut on rusty playground screws and contracting tetanus, getting burnt by playground metal baking in the FL sun, falling on unforgiving cement, getting kidnapped...(the list of paranoid mom fears when taking baby to outdoor playgrounds is endless). Of course, there are always the germs to worry about, but the My Gym crew are really pretty neurotic about constantly wiping, cleaning and disinfecting everything, which is just the way this mom likes it.
So, the class is in full swing, with crazy hyper-excited babies and toddlers crawling, walking, running, climbing, jumping, and hanging around everywhere (with their parents frantically chasing them around), and Dylan's right in the middle of the chaos, doing his baby explorer thing. I take him around to a few different activity stations to get a sense for what he likes and doesn't like to do, and no matter where I take him with all of the fun and exciting things to do, it becomes abundantly clear that Dylan just wants to EAT everything. I drop him in the ball pit, and he just hangs on to the edge, trying to chew through the rubber. I put him up in the playhouse, and he goes back and forth from trying to eat the screws in the floor to eating the wooden ladder rungs. We move to the rock climbing wall, and he tries to eat one protruding step after the other. I lay him on the mat, and he tries to lick the sticker label. I finally just stand him up in the middle of the padded floor and let him go, thinking 'Ha, there's nothing he can eat out here in the open.' 2 seconds later, he's crouching down, pushing his face into the floor, trying to eat the masking tape they use to mark the stations. At the other stations, I could get away with just letting him eat away the building, piece by small piece, because it just looked like he was teething or mouthing, like normal babies, right? But when your baby is crouching, kneeling or laying with his face smashed on the floor trying eagerly to eat all of the little tape markings, in the middle of a room full of rambunctious other babies and their parents trying to politely avoid running into/over him, it's totally mom-barrassing. I don't think 'oh, he's just teething' will suffice to explain such odd behavior (what kind of baby likes to chew on masking tape when they're teething?). I've honestly wondered if babies can have pica at such a young age (Dylan LOVES eating sand!). Yes, I KNOW all babies like to put everything in their mouths and that's how they explore the world, but it was just a bit worrisome that there were several other babies much younger than Dylan who didn't seem to have their faces plastered to the walls or floors of everything. Hmmm...
Tomorrow is Sunday Funday-- we're trying out a 'new' sitter, who isn't really new, since she's one of Dylan's teachers at daycare (how sweet is that!!), but it's the first time she's coming to babysit. I had all of these lofty ideas about going out to a fabulous adults-only meal, all dressed up like a human female, but then I realized that would require me to actually shower, blow dry my hair, learn how to put makeup on again, and put non-flip flop shoes on to leave the house. Just thinking about all of that work makes me sleepy. So now I think maybe we'll just go park the car somewhere in an abandoned lot, put the back seat down in the SUV so it's nice and roomy... and take a 2 hour nap. :)
Cheers,
Claire
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