Playgroup party

I love our playgroup.

If you are a mommy, and you don't have a playgroup, get a playgroup.  Find one at a church.  Make one with your Facebook friends.  Have one time once a week where mamas and babies can show up whenever they want and play and talk.  Have it be okay if you show up for only 15 minutes.  Have it be okay if you don't show up at all because it was just one of those mornings.  Go out to Chick-fil-a sometimes after.  Make a Facebook group and post tomato soup recipes or see if anyone else wants to go to the zoo or say, "There's a deal on ____ over at ____!"  Pray for each other's kids, worry when one of them needs bloodwork, ask for advice about potty training.  Celebrate new pregnancies and go to birthday parties and hospitals and each other's houses.

Not that I would know or anything.

I started going to our playgroup in January when Sweet Pea was four months old.  I saw a little ad in our church bulletin that they open the nursery rooms for a couple of hours on Wednesdays for anyone who wants to play.  For some reason, I was really nervous about going.  I think it was because I hadn't really put myself out there to meet new "mom" friends yet, but I knew it was time.  Four months in, I had come down off the frantic high of the brand-new baby days and all of the holidays and I was starting to feel lonely.  A lot of new stay-at-home moms experience that, but I think the timing of Sweet Pea's birth being just before the holiday season, coupled with my gall bladder surgery and an all-encompassing joy at this new part of life left me pretty full on my own for awhile.  My husband was gone nearly 24/7, working full-time, going to grad-school full-time and working two side jobs.  I had my mom and my niece, but it was time.  Time for new friends.  I badgered my friend Chelsie and made her promise to come with me.

So I went to playgroup.  And I made new friends.  And even though Sweet Pea just laid on the floor at first, eventually she made friends, too.

Here's the extra-best part.  In the spring of that year, my car was broken into.  (No, that wasn't extra-best...that was super lame...but just wait!)  I had left the diaper bag in there with my wallet and keys.  (I know, right?  Who does that?)  The buggers stole a bunch of stuff, and random tossed the wallet with only my driver's license down the street in front of a neighbor's (neighbors we didn't yet know, or so we thought!) house.  They turned the wallet in (the ID still had our old address on it) and a police officer brought it to me.

A few days later, I was at playgroup telling Chelsie how we hadn't made it to church on Sunday because of the break-in.  Another girl in the group heard me talking and said that her husband had found a wallet and ID a few days earlier from a car-break in...and lo and behold, it had been my wallet!        Wait, what?!  We're neighbors?  We live on the same street?!

It turned out that about four of the moms coming to playgroup lived on my street.  At the time, only one of them happened to go to our church, but she was the one who told all the others about the playgroup.

Fast-forward 18 months and pretty much we have the world's rockin'est playgroup.  One that randomly says, "Let's have a Halloween party!" and dresses our kids up and takes pictures.

Okay so all the costumes are adorable, but I have to give extra props to our scuba diver and our ninja turtle!

I mean, really...can you be cuter?!

My precious lady bug!

Our construction worker and trick-or-treating partner!

Always ready to fight crime, even in church nurseries

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Little BFF ladybug and butterfly

I'm so thankful for these girls and sure do love all of their babies.  I get sad when I think of the kids growing up and moving on to different preschools (it's already started happening with a few) but in the meantime, we're going to love this for all it's worth!

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