The Supper Circle and a Taste of Single Parent Hood

I mentioned before that the girls have found a group of friends that we meet with roughly once a month to have a formally informal “playdate”, but who they also get to see in their Sunday School classes at church.  We postponed our normal playdate this past Friday because of the St James Food Fair, but the girls managed to find each other anyway.  How gorgeous are these girls!

This was also the first time that I ventured out with the girls all by myself.  Well not to like a playdate or something where there is a limited space for disaster, but to a full on action packed space full of adventure and potential “losing mom” scenarios.  To be honest I doubted my ability to control them and to ensure that they never leave my sight.  With this in mind it’s probably crazy that I decided to do this for the first time when 5 months pregnant and struggling with a bit of a sore back.  Sometimes forethought into what “the clever thing would be” is not my strong point.

We went with my Mom, but she was on duty and seemed to never come off duty!  We got there at about 4.20 when there were few people – thankfully we could adjust to the new space without a thousand people pushing us.  The first goal on our list was to case the place – we walked around taking everything in and then had a good time walking up and down the steps outside in the cold.

After that, Kyla’s new mission was to find Sarah (who keeps getting invited to her party, every time we mention her party she makes sure that “me frend Sarah dere?”), and who she just loves and talks about all the time.  Once we found Sarah and Ella we formed a supper circle in the DG Mills, enabling the moms to each make a quick breakaway and get some food for the tots.  We then sat and ate our hotdogs and had chats.  I am so thankful for the supper circle, I don’t know if I would have made it without it.

Then it was time to visit the place that I had wanted to avoid for as long as possible – the kids fun area.  The kids bouncing castle and ball pond is normally something I avoid on good days, but even more when I have to split myself in two.  We got there and off came the shoes and Kyla was following Sarah to jump on the jumping castle – unfortunately Ri was not in the mood and so clung to my leg in fear.   I showed her the ball pond on the otherside of the room to see if she was interested – big mistake.  It meant we had to go there, which was fine, but Kyla was still jumping.  So I go an positioned myself in a way that I could see Kyla but still be there for Riya.  I put her in and she literally drowned in all the balls, I just saw her head going under.  She adored it, but I was having mild heart attacks with the children jumping in on top of her, I just kept thinking that I probably wouldn’t be able to make it to her in time if she really did go under.  After that it was a case of just making sure that we all stayed together while giving irritating children the death stare – yes, little boy that was doing back flips into a ball pond filled with tiny children, I’m talking to you!

All this bouncing can make little tots very thirsty and I was feeling quite parched myself, so we headed through the masses of people to the drinks stand.  Trying to keep and eye on them while still maintaining our place in the line took some skill, but thankfully we managed.  I made them sit down in the same place that we had our supper circle and we took it in turns to drink our juice while Riya danced for anyone that paid her more than 2 seconds of attention.

At this point I realised that I had not personally eaten a thing.  It was around 6 and peckish was a gigantic understatement of how I felt.  Thankfully this was when I spotted Ga and Papa and they graciously took them for 15 minutes so that I could round up my mom and grab a boerie roll.  By the time I got back to the girls Riya was pretty much asleep and we realised it was very much time to head home.

What a night.  But I am so thankful that I did it.  They were so good and I think that we all enjoyed ourselves.  I suppose it’s great timing that I feel like I have mastered the art of 2 tots on the town just when it’s time to make it 3 tots!  Oh well, I’m up for the challenge.