Play Groups

Sibling rivalry. It's a difficult challenge for any family. Even the most laid back kids who tend to always go with the flow can have a hard time when it comes to sharing attention and time with mom. The past few months have been especially hard for our three year old. He is already in the stage that I have found to be the hardest. Three year olds are tough man! To top off his challenging age he is struggling at times with the attention that Little Man gets. With weekly Social Worker visits and now evaluations and soon therapies, it seems like all eyes are on Little Man a lot of the time. Then there's baby who nurses and gets to be worn all the time. Big sister is the only girl so she has all the "look at me twirl" attention on her. I feel like at times, even though we are working hard to make things even, Talon just feels left out. 

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We are making a huge effort to take time for just him. I've told you guys here, quite a few times about his love to pretend and explore. He is a goal oriented dreamer to the max. So when Pretend City contacted me about the launch of their new play groups... Oh man, I swore they designed these bad boys just for us. Right in our timing too. 

There are a few different options as far as age groups. We will be heading to the Three-Year-Old group starting this week. We would love to meet some new friends. There are also groups for 18-24 months, two year olds and four year olds. Here's what they'll look like.

Children learn and grow through play, and below are the age-specific groups for a child’s developmental level:

• Children ages 18 – 24 months: Young Toddler Playgroup 

Each week this playgroup will focus on a new play type and activity to foster toddler’s cognitive, motor and language skills as well as develop creativity and relational skills. 

• Children ages two years of age: Terrific Two Playgroup 

This playgroup will help support children to choose peaceful, positive behaviors. Learn how children communicate through play the way they see the world. Understanding a two-year-old’s perspective sheds light on how to deal with challenging behavior. 

• Children ages three years of age: Three-Year-Old Playgroup 

This playgroup understands that while children at age three are becoming more independent, theyare also learning how to engage with other children as they branch out to discover more about the world. This playgroup will provide tips to support children’s safe exploration and discovery. The age-specific activities will also help children when conflicts arise as they learn how to play and get along.

• Children ages four years of age: Fabulous Four Playgroup 

This playgroup provides children opportunities for math-play, science-play and language-play. It also helps children learn, understand and practice basic social and emotional skills. These social and emotional skills combined with different curriculum areas will provide children foundational skill-building necessary for success. 

The four specially designed “Play’s the Way” playgroups are designed to meet kids where they are at in their ages and stages. Which is huge for us right now. Talon NEEDS that. 

The groups will be lead by playgroup liaisons, including experienced and trained early childhood and child development educators, Brainbuilders and Pretendgineers.   

Pretend City will be providing information, resources, and skills to grown-ups in addition to children because as our kids change, so do we. I mean we learn as we go to a certain extent.

Register by visiting pretendcity.org/classes-workshops/. Cost is $75 per grown-up and child pair and $60 for Pretend City Members. Groups hold a minimum and maximum enrollment for pairs. For information on Pretend City Children’s Museum and its education-based programs, visit www.pretendcity.org. 

Let me know if we will be meeting you there!

Mommy and Me

I have mentioned here before how important we find it to have one on one time with each of our kids. Especially now that there are four of them. We make an effort daily to spend a little time together which each of them. Every now and then we will even take them on little dates.

This month, I got some time to take Talon to his favorite place. Pretend City. I think I have told you all about this boys love for Pretend City. Being able to run around, explore and use his imagination is where I see him thrive. I can not express how much I love seeing his face light up and his brain work. Is there anything cooler than being able to see the wheels turning in their little heads?

Pretend City just opened their new Bayou Cafe and so it was a perfect time for my boy and I to stop by and have some fun. To top it off, they had a little Mardi Gras celebration for the opening. We were able to have our usual fun and also get some extra crafting in while making floats and masks. Ritter's Steam Kettle Cooking served us up some amazing food and we were able to just sit and talk to each other about the day.

As usual, Talon's favorite part was fishing and shooting the water guns. It's always where he spends majority of our time and he made sure to tell me all about it over lunch.

After punching in his time card at all the different areas and cashing out at the Pretend City ATM, we hit up the sand one last time (close second to the water) and headed back to the rest of the kids.

He told Rhiannon all about everything he had done and that they had a new place for her to be a cooker. The Cafe is her favorite part of Pretend City. She has insisted that she gets the next mommy date and we head there to check it out. I won't complain.

Pretend City

29 Hubble

Irvine CA 92618

949-428-3900

Hours:

Monday: 10AM - 1PM

Tuesday - Sunday 10AM - 5PM

Adults & Children: $12.50

Infant to 12 months: FREE

When I Grow Up Event

Pretend City. I've mentioned here quite a bit how much we love it. It's definitely on our list of favorite places in Orange County. It's so high up there that this month when I asked Talon what he would like to do on his actual birthday, offering Disneyland, Knotts, Soak City, Parks, the beach, the works, he was set on Pretend City.

Done. Mama loves it too. You can imagine how excited I was when I got an e-mail of this months events and there was one on Talon's special day. It gets better. The event: "When I Grow Up". How perfect for our little guy who is growing before my eyes.

At When I Grow Up Day, Pretend City will have professionals from the community for the Pretenders to interact with. There will be people from all sorts of professions. The birthday boy is extra excited about the Firefighter and Lifeguard. His sister on the other hand cannot wait to see the manicurist and children's book illustrator. There are so many more too.

The event looks like a ton of extra fun. Pretend City is offering $1 off admission. And we will be there celebrating. We would love to see some of your faces and meet some of our followers in real life!

If you are able to make it, please say hello. I will be the crazy lady wearing a baby and chasing a 1, 3 and 4 year old while trying instagram it all. Ha. But seriously, we hope to see you there!

Event Info

August 23rd

10am-2pm

Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood

"My turn to pick" 

 "No, my turn to pick"

 "MOMMMMYYY!!!!"

This conversation goes down a lot at our house. My kiddos love tv. They are only allowed an hour or so of television a day. Most days. So when it comes to who chooses the shows, they take it serious. One is two, one is four. One a girl, one a boy. So as you can imagine, their tastes in t.v. are a bit different.


This mom needed some relief. A break from the remote control battles. So you can imagine my excitement when they found a show they both love. You can not even begin to imagine how much more excited I was when I found that the show taught great character traits and had education benefits. Insert big happy mommy face her. Woo Hoo!!!!!!

You're Invited

Hey all-
It's me. Did you fall out of your seat when you saw me blogging. It was kind of like a ghost popping out to haunt you, wasn't it?

I know, I have been missing forever. I have been so busy with prep for Foster Care. Remember, a long time ago when I blogged consistently, I told you all about it?

I let you all know on Twitter and Facebook that I would be back with you next week but I wanted to take a break from my break to invite all of you local people to join me and my kiddos at Pretend City. We had you join us a few months ago and it was so much fun. I was thrilled to meet a few of you there... in real life. I would love to meet more of you.

Pretend City is offering a free entry ticket with the purchase of a regular adult or child ticket. Just bring this with you and join us there.

We will be there around 1pm if you would like to meet up with us. Feel free to use this voucher anytime during the day though.

If you can't make it, I will be sharing all about our trip there. There are always so many fun stories, pictures and memories to share after a trip to Pretend City.

Sunday FUN-day

Living in Orange County, we have lots of options as to how we can entertain our kids. We love to get out and have fun as a family. We have hit up all the parks and beaches. We do Disneyland and even some museums but when it comes to a fun and educational trip, nothing has compared to Pretend City.

We took Rhi last year and I was amazed by everything that was there. Pretend Play is a HUGE part of development in kids, so this trip was perfect for us.
Within Pretend City, Rhiannon was able toddle through all of the things you would imagine being in one of our cities (just her size). Her favorites were the doctors office and the fishing docks but there were so many other things to explore. Instead of telling you all about it, I want to invite you all to join us.


Join us? You heard me right. I am inviting you to come with us. Actually Pretend City has invited you.

This Sunday, the 28th of August, it is PBS SoCal Day with Martha Speaks. Pretend City has been so generous and they are offering all Rock-A-Bow readers a 2 for 1 entry coupon! If you want to know more about the event, go here and scroll to the bottom of the page.

Here is your coupon. Click the image to enlarge. Oh and if you come PLEASE find me and say hello. I'll be tweeting while there so let me know if you are looking for us.