One O'Clock Club
Today I took Freyja to the one o'clock club at Crystal Palace park. It's brilliant - it runs during the week, mornings and afternoons and has loads of fun activities. There's drawing, painting and sticking inside and then outside is a big play area with bikes, Wendy houses, climbing frames etc. My whole group of mums was there so we all sat in the sunshine with our coffees while our children ran around outside, then we went inside for some painting and sticking and, the most fun of all, washing of hands afterwards in a great big bucket of soapy water...It really made me see how big my little girl is getting. I don't generally see her at these sort of activities - I usually take her to the park or the Horniman Museum, or we just go round to a friend's house, while her child minder takes her to an art group on a Monday and she goes to a singing group on a Wednesday. It was funny to watch her sitting down with her pot of glue and just get on with making her bird as if she does it every day, then queuing to wash up afterwards.
Until I stopped work, I hadn't really realised how much of my time and energy it did take up. I do like working and I think the balance of working part time on the whole works well for me, but since the beginning of this year, the Thursday mornings from home started creeping into the Thursday afternoons, which meant that I ended up doing house stuff on Fridays rather than always spending good, quality time with Freyja. Although at 9 months pregnant I'm now exhausted, I've really loved my time with her these last 2 weeks - work is a million miles away and we've had a lot of fun, both just at home and out and about.
Things will change again when the baby arrives, but I'm enjoying this time and really looking forward to spending the rest of the year concentrating on my family life and my child(ren).
posted by solveig @ 2:15 PM
4 Comments:
there used to be a one o clock club just by Peckham Rye Park - I never managed to get there, usually because Jacob was always fast asleep at 1pm :)
I've loved going to toddler group with both Jacob and Sam, I love watching how they interact with other kids and play together and do art etc.
There's a photo of Jacob on the nursery wall hard at work on a picasso-stylee drawing, I always look at it so I can see what I'm missing these days.
The one at Crystal Palace has a morning session from 10am to 12.30 which is perfect - Freyja wouldn't last for a 1.00 session either, she still really needs her nap (thank goodness!)
It is lovely seeing them at these sort of things - I'm looking forward to doing a bit more of it this year.
S x
churches tend to have mother/toddler sessions - you can pay as you go and not have to sign up for a whole terms worth (as you have to do for a lot of the ofsted ones).
might be worth having a look on the notice board of your nearest church to see if they do one.
I think it's absolutely brilliant how much stuff there is to do with your children - churches and libraries have so much on, most of it free or just £1.
It's really made me feel that this is my home, in a way that I didn't before having Freyja. I love that I can pop down to a group at the library or stroll up to the park and more often than not will bump into someone I know.
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