We did something new.....

Today we tried a playgroup, finally. I was excited to be venturing out somewhere new and finding my way. Gretta didn’t know what she was in for, but I think she was excited too! After her visit with the maids I strapped her on and away we went. We had to walk a little ways, but it was fine. We got to see some new Soi’s (pronounced soy) which is what all the side streets followed by a number are named and for a moment thought we might not be on the right Soi, but then there it was. I rang the bell and we were admitted inside. Once we were there we found our way to the room where this particular playgroup was held. Ahh….it was air conditioned, which I was thankful for especially after the little walk with a baby strapped to my chest! There were only 3 kids there when we first got there. Then they started multiplying……and soon there were about 20 kids plus their mothers. All Japanese. All at least 1 year old or older. Hm….I thought this was going to be a little younger group with maybe some other westerners…..Oh well, we’ll try and have fun. It wasn’t too bad, Gretta enjoyed the new toys and watching all the kids and the noise didn’t seem to bother her. It didn’t really bother me either until the bully of the group made himself known by hitting everyone and taking their toys. Even Gretta got a swat, more of a nudge really, but I still decided it would be better to move away from him. I don’t think she’s ready to defend herself quite yet, especially against a 4-year-old.

Now imagine if you will, about 20 approximately 4 and under Japanese children running around a 10 x 30 room……cue the obnoxious nursery rhyme music……the crying kids from the bully (whose mother was the leader of the group, go figure) and we have a little chaos on our hands that I don’t know if either of us was prepared for. Of course Gretta, being her usual social self, was all smiles. I, on the other hand, was cringing a little on the inside, but definitely smiling on the outside. The group leader assured me that the group was usually not this big and when it was snack time I decided it was time to leave and another mother was also leaving and she said that it wasn’t usually this big of group either so maybe it was a bad day to go. At least we tried it!

We made it back to the main road and then the rain started….not just trickles. A nice downpour. Of course I didn’t bring an umbrella even though I just heard on CNN the other day how October is the wettest month here.

Luckily we weren’t too far from the open skyway. We got up there and got into the mall connected to our building where I noticed Gretta had spit up so I stopped to clean her up a little and then she spit up some more…..strategically on my foot. I was wearing flip flops of course. Oh, the loveliness of spit up between the toes! I decided that I definitely deserved a mango smoothie.

Moral of the story, I did something new today, it didn’t kill me and I enjoyed a mango smoothie in our quiet apartment!



YUM!