Stephen Day Park, Chick-Fil-A

Luna Moms had a meetup at Stephen Day Park today.  We generally have a good time at this park.  It is a good stroll from the parking lot to the park, which has pros and cons.  When you are hauling a screaming child back to the car against their will, or realize that you have left the diaper bag or cell phone on the passenger seat, it is a definite con.  When you are enjoying an astoundingly gorgeous spring day as your toddler nicely holds your hand and sings the alphabet song while you trot off to meet up with friends, it is a wonderful plus.  The hills are picturesque.  According to the City of Longmont website, there is a discovery theme at this park, with lots of features that I honestly never noticed.  It is next to an elementary school, which can be really bad - Spencer notices their cool and varied playground equipment, especially if we are at the park during recess hours, and finds poor Stephen Day to be inferior to all the great stuff at the school next door.  But there is a skate park, mountain bike area, rope climbing structure, full size basketball court, lots of grassy area to run on, interesting hills to run up and down, and a nicely laid out and well-marked running path that is very wide and well-suited to pushing your jogging stroller on.  (I have done this, but honestly, only once.  I should do that again.)  We visited here several times before we noticed that there is sand in the volleyball area, and usually no volleyball players, and this has added a lot to our enjoyment of the park.  It also has several of those odd playground features - the red bucket that makes you want to hurl as you spin in it, and the black triangles you sit on and have someone spin for you until, again, you feel nauseous.  Spencer loves both options, both for himself and as a vehicle for spinning wood chips, so I appreciate seeing them.  The very best part of Stephen Day Park isn't open yet, and that is the interactive water spray garden, which is fantastic and completely free.  Looking forward to that.  This park doesn't always keep Spencer's attention as long as some of the others, as there is a limited amount of stuff that he can do yet and no adult swings or bouncy horses, but today, we had a ton of people there and great food, so it worked out ok.  He somehow stole three cupcakes over the course of two hours, so I'm sure he felt like it was a very effective afternoon.

After nap time, we took advantage of the incredible weather and planted peas, dug a new bed in the garden, played basketball and baseball, explored the sandbox, and pulled out the sand-water table for the season.  While we were at it, we pulled dandelions, spotted the first crocus of the year (yellow!) and washed the dog.  After all of that, I was exhausted.  Spencer was somehow still energetic, and since my husband was still away on a business trip, we went to Chick-Fil-A for dinner.

We try not to go too often, but we love this place.  The play area is clean and completely enclosed, with enough stuff to keep Spencer happy for more than an hour.  You get free balloons from each trip, yielding great joy through the next day.  The kids' meals are reasonably priced and can have fruit salad instead of fries.  The under-3 toy is a board book, or can be an ice cream cone, if you'd prefer.  I like the chicken sandwiches and the fresh-squeezed lemonade.  (I found a lemon seed in mine tonight, so I believe that they really do sit in the back room and squeeze lemons, which I find somehow appealing.)  Of course the waffle fries are exciting, and the fruit salad is great.  I am not a fan of their soup, and the chicken on their salad is not the same as the sandwich chicken (and was inedibly bad the last time I got it), so stick with the classic and you won't be disappointed.  The staff is almost always extremely polite - they carry things, come to your table to offer drink refills, and ma'am you to death.  It's nice.  But the whole point of this place is the playroom, and tonight didn't disappoint.  My toddler, who decided that pushing was the best way to get up the steps first, might have disappointed a bit, but the restaurant was nice.

My husband doesn't travel much, at least when we are not with him.  I have enjoyed the time to myself, but I have missed him, and of course Spencer has asked about him nonstop. 

One of the moms mentioned today at the playground that she is due in late September.  I was genuinely happy for her, of course, but also a little sad for myself.  We had a miscarriage a few weeks ago, and it was a bit of a shock to hear my friend's due date and realize, "oh, I would have been 12 weeks now, wouldn't I."  Somehow I hadn't thought of that.  My OB had told me to not be surprised to be sad and angry when I ran into women who would have been on the same pregnancy track as me, but it really hadn't occurred to me until today.  I am grateful for our good medical insurance, as the bills from the surgery and the blood draws and ultrasounds and doctor's visits keep rolling in.  I am grateful to my husband for providing that insurance for our family; I am grateful that my sadness does not have to be tempered with panic over how to pay for all this. 

I waited longer than I wanted to wait to begin to have my family, and I am often grateful that I did wait.  I am more patient now, and I chose a better father for my children than I would have picked when I was younger.  My husband is a great father, and every time I see evidence of that, I feel more and more loving towards him.  I know very well how many not-great fathers there are out there.  Before I had kids, I worried a lot about choosing one of them for my children.  You don't always know who will be patient and sweet and adoring with their children; sometimes people surprise you.  As a stay-at-home mom, I am also very grateful to my husband for making our comfortable life possible.  I know that that is probably not the most culturally acceptable statement I've ever made, but it is still true.  It is not an easy thing to slog to work every day.  Few people really love to do it.  But his doing it makes everything I get to do with Spencer possible - days at the park, time at the pool, afternoons spent playing basketball and gardening in the sunshine, Spencer's music or cooking or tumbling classes.  All he would have to do to end this beautiful life is to quit his job, and suddenly everything would be gone, just like that.  So I'm grateful to him.  I hope that he knows that he is appreciated.