Friday, June 9, 2006

The playgroup experience

Yesterday Rebecca and I tried out a free playgroup run by the community centre. Unfortunately, perhaps due to the fact that it is summer, there were only two other children there. One was 5 or 6 years of age, and the other was 10 or 11 months of age. We stayed for about 45 minutes, and most of the time, Rebecca played with toys. There was a snack time and story time, but Rebecca couldn't eat the snack, and seemed disinterested in the story. She did enjoy hearing singing by the friendly and personable lady who was running the playgroup. While Rebecca clearly enjoyed observing the other children at play, she wasn't motivated to interact with them. Perhaps there were too many new things for her to confront at the same time. Maybe Becca is just too young for a playgroup, and I should focus on having her interact with familiar children like her cousins or the children of family friends. Besides, I was bored out of my skull. I realized I would find it torturous when my first watch check occured only twelve minutes after arriving.
Some day care facilities share the same building that houses the playgroup. When I was changing Rebecca at the change station, there was an elaborate cubby system for the diapers of day care babies. Each cubby contained specific diapers and supplies and was labeled with a piece of masking tape upon which the child's name was written in marker. I found it amusing that one of the children was name after an obscure video game character (Yunalesca), from one of my favourite game series (Final Fantasy). Of course - I was the one to recognize the name, so what does that say about me?

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