A quick late-night update
Jan. 25th, 2014 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeOkay, not that late, but late by my standards. It's almost bedtime, though Bean is chattering loudly to himself in bed.
We had a long, exciting day at a school friend's birthday party at the Musée Pour Enfants in Laval, where they have a really cool two-storey exhibit of various career paths you can follow. The kids can pilot a rocket ship and an airplane, investigate a real live police car, ride a horse (fake), milk a cow (also fake), check out all the different aspects of a grocery store, serve lunch in a café, and a bunch of other activities tailored for ages 3-8 (or maybe 10).
It was a lot of fun. Bean ran around like a mad running thing, so fast that most of my pictures of him are blurs. One day, when I have some spare cash, I am going to get myself a proper camera that will be able to accommodate action shots, because all photos of Bean end up being action shots. ;)
We had one sour moment right at the beginning. Bean ran off without listening to us, so![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pdaughter ran after him, brought him back and scolded him loudly for doing something so dangerous. (Running off and not listening is Bean's favourite pastime. We're a little at our wits' end as to how to keep him by our side in public) So as this happened, another mother who didn't know us from a hole in the ground came up and told me that it was a terrible thing to speak to a child like that because he was scared and she felt so awful listening to it.
I politely—if sarcastically—thanked her for volunteering her unsolicited opinion, and explained I'd rather Bean be frightened for 30 seconds and learn not to run off, than not be scared and get himself lost or hurt or taken by a child molester or all three, thank you. She took her judgey self off back to her own kid, and I patted myself on the back for not telling her to take her opinion and shove it up her ass.
On the plus side, the parents of Bean's friends were all horrified at this woman's intervention, and so there was a chorus of parental indignation on our behalf all around. Who did this woman think she was, to judge other people's parenting? Didn't she have kids of her own to tend to? Why couldn't she mind her own business? Which was gratifying and oddly cathartic. ;)
Otherwise, the day was overall a good one. Bean got overstimulated and overtired, so by the end there were tears and histrionics about leaving, but a lot of the other kids were in the same state. One little girl flailed so hard she kicked her father in the crotch, making all of us wince in sympathy.
This was the first birthday party I'd ever been to for a child who wasn't one of my friends' kids, and it was great to finally see some of Bean's classmates and talk to their parents. I'm never the one who drops him off or picks him up (becausepdaughter has the carseat in her car, and because she's in school right nearby it makes more sense for her to bring him back and forth, rather than switch out the car seat and making things way more complicated), so I interact little to not at all with anyone at the school, and that's one of my biggest regrets about this whole situation.
The evening was spent quietly at home. We played some computer games, and then Bean pulled every stalling tactic in the book before bed, only ending up actually in bed an hour after his usual bedtime. He fell asleep in the car on the way home, which gave him an extra boost of energy this evening. Naps inevitably ruin bedtime, alas.
He's finally gone quiet in the last five minutes, though that's not necessarily an indicator that he's actually asleep. Time will tell. Soon it will be bedtime for us, too. My eyes are burning, so I can't say it will be unwelcome. :)
Tomorrowpdaughter is going to her cake decorating class, so it'll be just me and Bean together for most of the morning and part of the afternoon. She's made industrial quantities of buttercream and baked her cake already today (there will be so much cake this weekend, OMG), and I can't wait to see the end result. The cupcakes she decorated last week were gorgeous, and she gets better every time she practices. When she finally starts her own business, people will be flocking to her door, mark my words. <3
:::ETA:::
Bean has resumed singing to himself. It's 21:35. GO TO SLEEP, CHILD, YOU WILL BE TIRED AND CRANKY TOMORROW. (Seriously, where is Samuel L. Jackson when you need him?)
We had a long, exciting day at a school friend's birthday party at the Musée Pour Enfants in Laval, where they have a really cool two-storey exhibit of various career paths you can follow. The kids can pilot a rocket ship and an airplane, investigate a real live police car, ride a horse (fake), milk a cow (also fake), check out all the different aspects of a grocery store, serve lunch in a café, and a bunch of other activities tailored for ages 3-8 (or maybe 10).
It was a lot of fun. Bean ran around like a mad running thing, so fast that most of my pictures of him are blurs. One day, when I have some spare cash, I am going to get myself a proper camera that will be able to accommodate action shots, because all photos of Bean end up being action shots. ;)
We had one sour moment right at the beginning. Bean ran off without listening to us, so
pdaughter ran after him, brought him back and scolded him loudly for doing something so dangerous. (Running off and not listening is Bean's favourite pastime. We're a little at our wits' end as to how to keep him by our side in public) So as this happened, another mother who didn't know us from a hole in the ground came up and told me that it was a terrible thing to speak to a child like that because he was scared and she felt so awful listening to it.I politely—if sarcastically—thanked her for volunteering her unsolicited opinion, and explained I'd rather Bean be frightened for 30 seconds and learn not to run off, than not be scared and get himself lost or hurt or taken by a child molester or all three, thank you. She took her judgey self off back to her own kid, and I patted myself on the back for not telling her to take her opinion and shove it up her ass.
On the plus side, the parents of Bean's friends were all horrified at this woman's intervention, and so there was a chorus of parental indignation on our behalf all around. Who did this woman think she was, to judge other people's parenting? Didn't she have kids of her own to tend to? Why couldn't she mind her own business? Which was gratifying and oddly cathartic. ;)
Otherwise, the day was overall a good one. Bean got overstimulated and overtired, so by the end there were tears and histrionics about leaving, but a lot of the other kids were in the same state. One little girl flailed so hard she kicked her father in the crotch, making all of us wince in sympathy.
This was the first birthday party I'd ever been to for a child who wasn't one of my friends' kids, and it was great to finally see some of Bean's classmates and talk to their parents. I'm never the one who drops him off or picks him up (because
pdaughter has the carseat in her car, and because she's in school right nearby it makes more sense for her to bring him back and forth, rather than switch out the car seat and making things way more complicated), so I interact little to not at all with anyone at the school, and that's one of my biggest regrets about this whole situation.The evening was spent quietly at home. We played some computer games, and then Bean pulled every stalling tactic in the book before bed, only ending up actually in bed an hour after his usual bedtime. He fell asleep in the car on the way home, which gave him an extra boost of energy this evening. Naps inevitably ruin bedtime, alas.
He's finally gone quiet in the last five minutes, though that's not necessarily an indicator that he's actually asleep. Time will tell. Soon it will be bedtime for us, too. My eyes are burning, so I can't say it will be unwelcome. :)
Tomorrow
pdaughter is going to her cake decorating class, so it'll be just me and Bean together for most of the morning and part of the afternoon. She's made industrial quantities of buttercream and baked her cake already today (there will be so much cake this weekend, OMG), and I can't wait to see the end result. The cupcakes she decorated last week were gorgeous, and she gets better every time she practices. When she finally starts her own business, people will be flocking to her door, mark my words. <3:::ETA:::
Bean has resumed singing to himself. It's 21:35. GO TO SLEEP, CHILD, YOU WILL BE TIRED AND CRANKY TOMORROW. (Seriously, where is Samuel L. Jackson when you need him?)
