This last week we went to an indoor play gym we had been contemplating for a while. I think Skye was a little overwhelmed, she didn’t really start playing for several minutes. She would just watch the 2 older children there playing. They had a ton of varying toys for varying ages, ALL of which are a new inventory of her current toys. It was fun to do something for her that I’m sure she’ll enjoy doing more of. She loves watching older kids and is fascinated by them. I’m hoping it will be good for her to be around other kids. She’ll still too young to really interact with them, but I think it’s important for her to be exposed to people under 30. It only cost 2 euro/hour (in the states something like this was about ~15/hour). We stayed for an hour, talked to an Irish mom for a minute and Skye finally started exploring. She loved the balls from the pit, but she also liked being pushed around in a toy dump truck. (camera died after this pic)
When we were back in the states and I was panicking about moving with a baby, I found an SK expat (foreigners living in another country) website and started asking questions from other expats. I started talking with this guy from here, asking him stupid questions like, can we take a stroller on the bus (panicking, yes I was). We finally met up with him, his wife and their 18-month old daughter for lunch. She is from here, he is from Texas. They were really nice and it was great to socialize for a bit. Hopefully we’ll hang out again, but even if we don’t, it was great to hang out with another family, the same age and in a somewhat similar situation.
From this same website, a few expat mothers are trying to get a playgroup started. The first is this Wednesday, so we’ll see how that goes.
This week we also have our first pediatric appointment for Skye. The doctor is a close friend of my boss and through our e-mails he seems like a really nice man. Skye is fine, we just wanted to make contact with him and ask a few questions about her upcoming transition into her first year.
It’s really bizarre and way out of our comfort zone to extend ourselves like this. You totally have to put yourself out there, be vulnerable and see what happens. At this age, you are just accustomed to having your circle of friends and take advantage of the fact that they can be called at any moment to hang out. So here’s to making a few new friends in a foreign land!
