Interesting Day.

Can a person have a playdate all by herself? I mean, if you're at the location where the playdate is scheduled at the time when it's scheduled, and if you do the activities that were scheduled, have you had a playdate even though no one else showed up? That's what happened to me today. I made my first concerted effort to get out of the house and meet people since Seth has joined the Navy, and I got skunked. Niki and I were the only people there.

We were supposed to go splash in the fountains. Bremerton has this wonderful Harborside Park, right by the ferry terminal, that has huge fountains shaped vaguely like the sail of a submarine. Water trickles constantly down the sides and erupts out of the tops at random moments. The bases are in wading pools about three inches deep.



It's the perfect place to play on a hot summer day, and we do actually get some hot summer days around here. Today was almost a hot summer day. The sun came out around 11:00, the temperature jumped above 60 F, and the clouds vanished. It seemed like a perfect day to go wading.

So Niki and I showed up at 11:45 for an 11:00 playdate, and no one was there. I know we were a little late, but playdates usually last longer than 45 minutes. Not a soul in sight. At least, no mommies with pre-school aged kids. There were plenty of shipyard workers, ferry tourists, and Navy people passing through, but no moms, no kids, no strollers, just us. That's a really weird feeling. So we played by ourselves.

We had lunch. Niki pushed the stroller around in the big open places.
And we considered the possibility of maybe getting in the cold water that only reached up to her "cankles." ("Cankles" are the chubby little rolls that infants and toddlers have above their ankles. You can ask my friend Michelle if you don't believe me.) Actually, I put her feet in the water once, and she wouldn't have anything to do with it after that, not even when I was in the water first. I don't know if the water or the cold made her uncertain, but she wasn't going in.

Very uncertain. I've no idea where the other mommas were. I know I was at the right place. I think I had the right time. I was even expecting to run into an old acquaintance or two. Oh well, maybe next time.

In other news, Niki is continuing her conquest of climbing. This little incident happened yesterday. She got up on the chair all by herself. I think she wanted to know what I was doing. (I think I was writing letters). Then she wanted to help. By that point, I hadn't really processed that she was standing on a chair. I was thinking more about what she was doing to the papers on my table. This little pose shows exactly how fearless she is. Now I've started putting the chairs upside down when she's wandering around on her own. Next time she might manage to land on her head! As my mom says, "Kids. They'll give you grey hairs."