Playdates are exhausting

Playdates are fun, but truly exhausting. Yet, after so many playdates at the houses of others, one must reciprocate by hosting. So today was that day. With Mormor's help, we managed to pull off a very successful "Arts and Crafts" morning for five little ones, the oldest being three and a half. We tore up some of Athena's prolific collection of construction paper and paint artwork and taught the toddlers how to make collages by glue sticking and painting.

The arts portion of the day took up about 20 minutes, then the activities turned more towards splashing in the pool, spraying each other with the hose, bubbles, running circles, screaming and just general hyper-insanity.

Athena was the grand hostess who welcomed each person effusively and then didn't want them to touch her toys. One sweet, little boy, Devin, who does not like pools, chose to cool off by performing little experiments with water and buckets. That is, until Miss Athena plunked herself in the middle of his game.

After three hours, the backyard was a disaster, a couple of little people were crying and paint splotches were apparent at every surface below three feet. So, we called it a day, hosed the entire place down and went to take long, afternoon naps.