Park Day

I recently joined a large homeschooling group based out of Cape May and Atlantic counties. It's called Crossway Community homeschoolers and it has over 100 families in it. I was so excited to find it, because they have the coolest activities. Once a month is free rollerskating,once a month is bowling, and once a month is park day. There are also other activities put together by individuals. You join Crossway through a yahoo group, and then you can view the calendar and get email reminders of the upcoming activities.

This past Wednesday was Park Day. I was so excited, and also nervous, because I haven't met anyone yet. But I thought it would be a great way to start the school year off. So that morning I made sure I was up,showered, and did my devotions before the kids got up, which isn't easy, since Caleb like to get up around 6 am. But I was successful. I did my hair, which was looking good for once, and was all ready with breakfast when the kids got up. It was a good day.


So from there I got the house reasonably straightened up and the kids ready. Diaper bag packed. Plenty of cold water. Stroller ready. We had lunch and were ready to go. On the drive over I wondered how I would meet everyone. I assumed I would see a large group of moms together, talking as if they knew each other, and I would walk over and ask them if they were with Crossway. They would say yes, and I would introduce myself, and from there on out we would be BFF. What was the worst that could happen? I would ask a group if they were homeschoolers, they would say no, and I would say thanks and walk away? No, what would be worse is if they were the homeschoolers, I introduced myself, and they ignored me, talked to each other about stuff I wasn't part of, and I stood by awkwardly. Whatever, I thought, it is what it is.

So we got to the park, which actually has two playgrounds, one for small kids, and a bigger one up the road. I thought they would all be at the bigger one, but when we drove by the smaller one, Gracie and Caleb saw a train set AND dinosaurs to climb on. They were so excited. There were two moms there, one with a small toddler and another with two young boys. Probably not the homeschoolers. But I let the kids get out and play, and they were having a blast. Gracie was pretending to be a velociraptor, walking on her tiptoes with big strides and her hands pulled up like little claws by her chest. She kept roaring and falling on the ground, kicking her legs in the air like she was stuck. Then she kept repeating, "where's those eggs I buried? I wanna suck them up!" I decided that even if we met homeschoolers, they wouldn't want to hang out with us.

I let them play for a while, then I told them we were driving around to the other playground to see if we could meet people. But, there were only three people at that one too, and again, it didn't see like they were together. We went for a short walk down one of the nature trails, came back, and played a while longer. After that we packed up and went home.

While we were there though, I was sitting on the bench with Luke, and my butt started burning, then itching. I came home a saw a huge red welt. I obviously sat on something, and it stung me. I had a green stain on my shorts so I think it was a caterpillar. And that night, I found a tick on Luke's stomach. A teeny, tiny, microscopic tick. He stayed in his stroller, so I knew it must have come off me. I checked, and sure enough I hit a nest. I must have had 20 microscopic ticks on me! You know Ron Howard's little brother in the movie "Ticks"? "I'm infesthted!!!" ? That was me.

So now my butt itches, 20 little tick bites itch, and we didn't meet anyone. But I can't say the day was wasted, because my kids had a great time playing together. They got some fresh air and exercise, and I found the only playground I know of that I can let them play without shadowing Caleb. The equipment was small enough for him to climb on, and the ground was covered with about a foot of the rubber tire mulch. And besides, there's always Park Day next month. But this time, I'm wearing bug spray.