FABOO MAMAInside the mind of an opinionated mama…

Ilia takes a turn

When you live in Los Angeles as a childless person, you find the city at once exciting and boring. When you live in Los Angeles as a parent to wee ones, you find a city you never knew existed.  My husband recently reconnected with college friends on Facebook and made a date to meet. Where we used to plan to meet friends at a bar or restaurant, if they have kids as this friend did, we now seek out toddler friendly meeting locations and times that work around naps.  It was in this spirit that he agreed to meet this friend at Travel Town, for every parent of a child uner the age of 3 is well aware of Travel Town.  It’s centrally located, has free admission, many spaces for the kids to run around and most importantly, trains.

The meeting with the friend was nice, the kids ignored each other as they usually do, but something happened soon after our arrival. I saw the librarian from my daughter’s school. Her son is in the Dual-Language program with my daughter. Turned out, she was there celebrating her youngest’s birthday and invited us to join the celebration.  This made Ilia very happy because then there were other kids her age and other girls to play with, instead of just the two 3 year old boys we had in our small group.

There’s something interesting watching my kids play with other kids. Ilia becomes both aloof and overprotective of her brother. She makes sure Alton is included in the fun, but then wants nothing to do with him. Alton is happy being left alone, so he’ll wander off to walk by himself or sit off to the side an watch the other kids play. Occasionally, he’ll yell out to “Ewa” and run alongside her for a bit. My daughter is very social and she’s fascinated by older girls. She thinks of them as substitute older sisters. The females who’ll teach her about being girly, because it’s clear to her that mom is not going to do that.

The party was attended by most family members, but everyone was gracious and open. There were two piñatas, which made the kid of the lady we were meeting very happy. Apparently, he’s always wanted a piñata. My kids, who have not only had piñatas at their own parties, but have attended many other parties with t, still don’t get it.  Ilia, instead of grabbing any candy she ran across, mulled over the options. She discarded those she didn’t like, she allowed other kids to snatch candy from her, she was thoughtful about what went into her bag.  Naturally, this meant that when she saw how little candy she got compared to the other kids, she was a little upset. I explained to her that she had more candy at that moment than she did 5 minutes previous, so she should be grateful. She smiled and had a lollipop. Alton, on the other hand, did the same thing he always did; grabbed a piece of candy nearby and popped it into his mouth. When he wanted a second piece, he went back, surprised as always, that all the candy was gone.

We left soon after, but it was an afternoon well spent even if this time around we never got to see the trains. As my daughter said, “We come here all the time, it was nice to be here and not just look at trains for once.”