Indoor Options

Along with getting more than our fair share of snow this winter, the recent temperatures have been unbearable. As I parked in Beth's (daycare) driveway to drop off Finley on Monday morning, my car's thermometer said this:

It had been -6 on the highway so -4 was an improvement!! That kind of cold prevents any sort of outdoor recreation. In fact, that kind of cold almost prevents getting to any indoor recreation since you don't want to have to get out of a warm car or back into a frozen car. This week we've been to the local library and had a playdate with my my friend, Jenny, and her 9-month-old daughter, Quinn. Jenny was kind enough to let us park in her garage upon our arrival, sweet! Today (the only day I remembered to take out my camera), we went to a little indoor gym in Arlington after school. I scored a sweet 14 visit multipass from an amazing online coupon deal and couldn't wait to use visit #1. It's a drop-in playtime for kids 0-6. Once we got there I thought to myself how GIANT 5 and 6 year olds would be in comparison to Finley. Yikes. Luckily the oldest kid we saw running past us was no more than 4. I tried to take pictures, but I also wanted to encourage Finley to be independent which means I wouldn't be within grabbing distance. So I took a bunch of photos during the first twenty minutes we were there and then put the camera away.

He really loved pushing these big blue yoga balls around.

Finley impressed me by crawling up and over things since he's not much of a climber at home.

He's getting pretty good at throwing balls and it's funny to watch his reaction when they bounce or bonk into other things.

He's also quite good at following directions. I suggested that he put all those balls into the hole and, ta dah!

The room began to get more crowded, so we took a snack break. Finley's new love, blackberry cereal bars, are a must when we're on the go these days and while they are delicious--they can be a bit crummy. I decided to tether him to the highchair in the gym's snack room instead of letting him wander all over and leave a trail of crumbs. He didn't mind, in fact, I'm pretty sure I could've strapped him to a porcupine and he would have been okay with it as long as he could still eat his cereal bar.

I guess he's like me, he prefers not to be photographed when chowing down. I promised him I'd only take one more if he gave me a big smile:

Mission accomplished!

After his snack, we went back into the gym for an hour or so. He played with the balls, crawled through tunnels, climbed foam stairs, stacked cones, played peek-a-boo with a nice little girl, flirted with some nannies, went under the parachute, threw a mini-tantrum, and then sat on my lap for a while before getting back into the action. This seems to be his routine when we go places--he dives right into an activity and entertains himself for a while but then needs some mommy's lap-reassurance and then the cycle repeats itself. I suspect it's totally normal for him to need to check in with me and to pout here and there, but it's funny how predictable it is. He does it at home, too, and it's almost as if he's "recentering" himself before going into the next phase of his play. Whatever works :)

We packed up and drove home as the next nor'easter began to dump even more snow on us. Ug. I sure hope Finley and I will know what to do when the sun is out and we don't have to bundle up so only our eyes are showing!