new friendships

i’ve actually been friends with jen renzi for awhile (VERY sweet, cool mama!)…we just never could find time to spend a lot of time together….so now that we found out our girls hit it off very well, we are planning on getting them together weekly…maeven (mine, 6 in nov), thea (jen’s, 6 and a half, i think), and brooke (cindy’s, 5 and a half)… the 3 of them had such a good time and so did we moms! we met at jen’s house, which is on margaret hudson’s property because she is jen’s mother-in-law. margaret is a very famous local sculptor and i finally got to meet her officially on thursday! it was very exciting! and touring her gardens on her communal property was sooooo neat! the kids led us all over…it was only my 2nd time there. i had been there with maeven when maeven was a baby…but it was at nite and we only walked quickly through the garden to the barn for the drumming circle. they have drumming circle every full moon. it was way cool! the only thing was that not a single person approached me to say hi or introduce themself so i ended up feeling very unwelcomed. 🙁 but it was such a cool thing, all those people drumming and some people even belly dancing, that i would still do it again and hope to get a better response.

anyway, the gardens…there were, of course, margaret’s sculptures everywhere! it was soooo beautiful! and the gardens are very wild… very child friendly. i was so completely in awe of it! lots of land and lots of great play places to explore! maeven had an absolute blast! all the kids did!

and it was so sweet because jen’s kids are so shy…i’ve known them since they were babies (well not very intimately, since i didn’t see them often) and i swear i don’t think i ever heard either of them talk! but when we were on their turf they were a hoot! both of them just talked up a storm and were such a delight!! it was so fun!

the only downside to the whole thing is tyren, again…poor baby…he wanted to get down and crawl everywhere and i did let him for the most part but he kept wanting to crawl into spider infested forts, slimey ponds, and other places that didn’t feel safe to me…i just don’t like him crawling around when there’s things that can hurt him…i’d rather he walked, but he’s just not quite there yet…he walks mostly at home, not so much in public yet. not when there’s unfamiliar and uneven terrain. although i know i’ll be chasing after him once he gets better at walking and that will be exhausting.

but we did finally settle at a little mini-ampitheater for awhile that was a great digging place for the kids…and shady and great seating for us moms. he proceeded to dig madly, throwing the sand/dirt onto his head. LOL! i finally gave up trying to get him to stop throwing and just moved him far enough away from any of us, so we were out of the line of fire. and decided that a bath would be absolutely necessary when we got home, lol! i wish i had had a camera. he had quite the dirt-filled head. LOL! but boy it was fun for him!

anyway, we are planning to return every week and i am very jazzed! my goal is for maeven to have the opportunity to really bond with some children her age…and so thea and brooke, fellow homeschoolers, seem to be a great fit! and luckily, i WAY like their mamas too! 🙂

oh i should also mention that i find it so incredibly fascinating (she really doesn’t see the big deal, which i also think is fascinating!) that jen is the daughter of famous sculptor clement renzi…married to the son of famous local sculptor margaret hudson. she says that for a time it was very confusing to her kids that other people made sculptures too…because they’d see something and ask “did grandma make that or did grandpa?” and not get that there are other people other than their maternal grandpa and paternal grandma that are sculptors. LOL! too funny!

i’m very happy and excited to see where maeven’s and my new friendships will lead! stay tuned!