Thankful Thursday

I've decided that on Thursday's, I'm going to try to post about what I am thankful for.  On this Thursday, I am thankful for my playgroup, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Onesies.  After Samantha was born, I decided that I needed to find some mom friends since no one I know here my age has kids of their own.  I ventured over to www.meetup.com and decided to look for local moms groups and came across the sisterhood.  I joined and then noticed that they were having a "Breakfast Club" meet-up the following day.  The click to say "yes, I'm attending this meet-up" was one of the toughest things to do!  Much harder than I thought it would be.  I probably sat at the computer for 5 minutes with my mouse hovering over yes, me too scared to push my finger.  This making new mom friends thing is SCARY!  Finally though, I did it, and so was the beginning of my playgroup membership.

I didn't know the "rules" of playgroup when I attended that first meet-up.  That being that the 10:00am start time listed online, really means 10:30...or whenever your little one decides to wake up from his/her nap, finish eating breakfast, etc.  So here I am, carrying Samantha in her carrier, racing to the door at 10:01 freaking out that I'm going to be the only one to show up late.  Lo and behold, I was the first one there.  The girl that answered the door, Christina, was SUPER nice so it wasn't too terribly awkward to be there alone for the 30 minutes until someone else arrived.  Unfortunately, Christina recently  moved to Pennsylvania so I don't know how often we'll get to see her.  But I do hope we see her again.

Since our first meet-up we've attempted to go to playgroup 2-3 times per week.  It is so refreshing to get out and talk to other moms, and also for Samantha to have the opportunity to interact with other babies.  There are actually quite a few little ones right around Samantha's age.  She just loves looking all around and taking everything in.  Yesterday we had an Arts Appreciation 101 playgroup where we all sang silly songs and played music with our babies.  Samantha really enjoyed singing and watching the older ones dance.  This morning we went out for brunch at IHOP.  At this point, I've gotten close enough that I even meet up with a few of the mom's for non playgroup things!  For example Kate and I went walking yesterday and Megan and I went to the park today.  (Hence all the pictures!)

Some people wonder "how we have time to get all our housework done" when we are at playgroup all the time, and to them, I ask "how do you get your housework done when you are at work all the time"?  It's no different really.  At this point in time, I think it's extremely important for us to be out and about, making friends, and giving Samantha all the experiences she can have.  She is soaking in SO much information and it's quite evident how much she is enjoying everything we do!!