Four shirt day

Yesterday Jacob, Lucy and I went to Columbia Gym for a play date with Jacob's playgroup. It was a lot of fun, but the day was costly with regard to laundry. Specifically, I went through 4 shirts that day. Or more accurately, Lucy went through four of my shirts.

I got up early and showered while Angie was still playing with the children in the pre-dawn hours. I put on a red polo shirt figuring it would be good for the day. After joining the family for breakfast and other fun, I wound up carrying Lucy on my shoulder whose nose has been running on and off for the past couple of days. She ran on my shirt, so before we even left the house, I had to change into another shirt.

We drove off to the gym, which was difficult to find. Columbia is famous for hiding its businesses behind little hills or in office parks. The gym followed this model. Located in a business park, no signs on the street or on the building indicated where the gym is located. So we circled around a little till we were sure we were at the right spot.

Jacob had a grand time at the gym. The toddler program has an obstacle course for the young ones. A couple of balance beams, some padded ramps, a mini-trampoline, some crawling tunnels were arranged on the floor. The children tore through the course, and I mean that literally. The balance beams had little plastic disks to step on which were picked up and scattered. The crawling tunnels were large. light-weight and collapsible. I know because Jacob collapsed one of them. A couple of little traffic cones lined the final stretch of the course, but only for the first couple of course runners. Jacob found a bucket of chalk (the kind gymnasts use to keep their hands dry) and kept trying (and occasionally succeeding) in dunking the cones in the chalk. He also loved the long trampoline which he would just run down again and again. I tried to take some pictures with the cell phone camera. The action was too quick; every picture came out blurry.

Lucy was very patient waiting in her car seat while Jacob played and played. I had to run back and forth between her and Jacob a couple of times when she got a little antsy. So by the time we left I was more than a little moist. I changed into shirt number three when we got home. I downgraded to a t-shirt at this point.

They both went down for naps at the same time. I was quite happy about that. I completed a bunch of chores and was able to take a little nap too. I woke up with a start because I heard one of the children crying out. But then I checked on them and they were still down. I must have had a bad dream.

Eventually they did wake up and Lucy managed to drool and run her nose on my t-shirt. So I had to change shirts again for dinner time. Tomorrow, I'll have to do laundry.