July 5 = Play With Friends Day

We celebrated our 4th anniversary a few weeks ago.  A few weeks before that I was trying to figure out how Zachary and I could go out to dinner without the little man.  My original plan was for my parents to come up and watch Liam for a weekend in our apartment while we went to Mount Vernon and had a relaxing weekend before the baby came.  However, we learned Zachary had a class that met on two separate weekends, all afternoon Friday, all day Saturday and all day Sunday.  It was more practical for me to get them to come up on that weekend and help my 8 month pregnant self take care of Liam than for us to get a weekend away so that's what we did.  There's always next year right?  Ha.  Anyway- I was talking to my newly made friend, Rachel, who lives on the 3rd floor directly above us and she said they could watch Liam for us that night and I proposed we start a system where they watch Liam for us and we'll watch her kid(s) for her.  They have a 7 week old daughter so we won't be following far behind in joining the 2 kids club.  She loved the idea and so Saturday we paid them back for watching Liam for our anniversary.  They took little Allison with them and Jake stayed with us for a few hours.

Liam hasn't spent a ton of time around other kids since I stay at home with him.  Thankfully, Rachel and another mom in our apartment, Anne- who was due with her second child 3 days ago- are in the same boat so I think we can help each other find avenues for our kids to have that time.  I say this because I'm thrilled we have this new babysitting trade-off system because it gives Liam a little time with a 3 year old.  He's still a little unsure about the whole thing and spends most of his time playing in a different room rather than fully interacting but I think it'll get better as time passes.  Here are some pictures that caught some of the interaction they did have!