Friends

For a long time I have been meaning to post about Harper and her good friend Dana. I've mentioned Dana before, she is Harper's BFF, if you can have such a thing before age two. Several times in the past year, Harper and I have gone to Dana's house for play days. This has always been a nice chance for the girls to have some playtime, as well as an opportunity for Andrea and I to have some mom-to-mom time.

About a month ago we decided to try something new, Dana would come over to our house to play, but Andrea wouldn't stay. . . At first I was a little nervous about my ability to handle the two of them at once, which seems a little silly as I have successfully managed as many as 25 children in the past. The difference being, those children weren't toddlers!

Our first play day went beautifully. Without feeling a need to compete with the attention Andrea and I usually gave each other, the girls barely noticed I was there. They played with dolls, colored, danced, and had a great time. It was one of the easiest parenting mornings I'd had since Harper started walking.



Our second play day, a couple of weeks later, wasn't quite as smooth. Harper was going through a possessive phase (one of many, I'm guessing) and followed Dana around saying, "No way, Deeda!" whenever Dana attempted to pick up one of Harper's toys. Not so relaxing for me, as I ended up feeling like a referee for the first hour or so. Eventually the girls settled into playing nicely and did enjoy each other's company.



Well today we had the family play day to end all play days! Matt, Harper, and I met Dana and her parents at the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery here in Dayton.

The girls had a blast! For the first forty-five minutes, they shopped in the grocery/general store. They probably would have stayed in there all afternoon, but we'd never taken Harper to Boonshoft before and we were hoping to see a little more of the place.


One of our next stops was the water table. Despite not being tall enough to reach many of the boats and other water toys, Harper and Dana found a way to get their hands in the water and get plenty wet!

The other place we spent a great deal of time was the "color wall." This is a three-sided room with a silvery wall across from a large screen. There is funky music playing and, as you move in front of the wall, some kind of light magic goes to work, projecting your imagine on the screen. The types of images rotate, but it mostly looks like a combination shadow/screen saver/laser show/kaleidoscope. I have no idea how it works, but the effect is very cool.

The best was when Harper started running in circles around Dana, the image on the screen made Dana's shadow look like it was surround by what Harper would look like if she turned into a human slinky. Groovy.

Dads and Daughters Dance in Front of the Wall

Harper and Daddy

Harper and Dana

Somehow Auntie M ended up with a bunch of buy one/get one free admission tickets to Boonshoft, so you can bet we'll be back again soon!