Heather C Heather C is a married, mom of three: big sis Lily and identical twins Natalie and Sophia. She has been guest blogging for Mumbling Mommy since February of 2012 and began working as a Social Media Editor in 2014. After nearly a decade in banking, she now works part time at a doctor's office specializing in breastfeeding medicine and spends the rest of her days in her Midwest home as zookeeper/stay-at-home-mom. Heather C is also a runner, hiker, yogi, bike rider and more. She reads when she finds more than a few minutes to herself and she hosts a lot of pajama dance parties in her kitchen. In her spare time, she's the co-leader for her daughter's Girl Scout troop and an active member of the school's Parent-Teacher Committee as well as a certified postpartum doula.

Last summer, we had lived in our new home just under 3 weeks. We didn’t have a ton of friends at our old house, but we did have some local-themed Facebook groups that gave us ideas for places to go. Hoping to start fresh, we sought out some twin play dates for our kids.

Conversing with other moms while keeping an eye on my running-in-opposite-direction-twins is near impossible, so most of our twin play dates involve me smiling politely at the other moms while their kids play nicely and my kids run in every direction like they’ve never left the house. We also have the fun dynamic of twin-dom, which is like having a super secret club only identical look-a-likes can join. “You didn’t come from my mommy’s uterus; you can’t play with me,” seems to be their mantra.

Nonetheless, I continue making the effort to participate in twin play dates because one day my children will in fact need to socialize with someone other than me or each other. I found a group of local moms on Meetup.com. I really like this website because it’s not Facebook (I frequently take breaks from the social media mogul because the drama is just too overwhelming for me.) and because it has an app. It’s a nice-sized group that is monitored for active participation, and the moms seem very friendly and like-minded.

So on this particular day, I took the twins to try out a bounce house type of place local to us called Jump4Fun. It was about a 20-minute drive (Which I didn’t realize until after we were on our way. Oops.) The place itself wasn’t bad at all. It wasn’t crowded and most of the kids there were similar in age and milestones. My oldest would have absolutely loved it. We’ve been to a place similar before for a birthday party and she enjoyed every minute. Those inflatable things are just amazing in the eyes of a child. (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t also enjoy them!)

I thought for sure my youngest two daughters, who were just under 3 years old at the time, would quickly fall in love like the rest of the universe, but alas, they once again proved me wrong.

They spent the entire hour we were there running on the carpet. They did attempt the large slide one time each, and the pure look of terror sliding down was enough for me to know they were done. The facility didn’t allow adults on the equipment unless they were “saving” a child. This was frustrating for me because I know if I could have just played WITH my kids, they would have had a blast and I wouldn’t have wasted the $10.

Oh well, lesson learned. This time was a play date fail, but you know, not all twin play dates are created equal. There is fun out there waiting for us. We just have to keep on hunting for it.

Editor’s Note: A version of this post was originally featured on Our Magical Chaos. I no longer actively maintain the site but wanted share some of my best posts with my readers here. 

 
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Category: Family Free Time

Tags: Heather C.