it doesn’t take a lot to make my heart beam with pride: simply watching my baby play on her own and i’m already there. sometimes i feel like secretly, we are all stage mommas — pushing and prodding our little ones to shine and perform, even if the stage is nothing more than the toddler area in a play centre somewhere.

even if the only people watching is us.

as much as i wanna take raven outdoors to parks and stuff, most of the time it’s too cold. and i hate the cold. so i was on the lookout for nice play centres within my area that’s clean and affordable. a place that serves food as well because when you don’t really have mommy friends around to hang out with, food is definitely the next best thing.

lollipop’s playland and cafe certainly did not disappoint — not the “free” cup of coffee or tea (something you get as the accompanying adult after paying $3.90 on top of the $8.50 entry fee for the child) and certainly not the pancakes with syrup and vanilla ice cream on top even though i just had lunch AND had half of jeff’s soy hot dark chocolate that was so sinfully good it slides down your throat like liquid silk.

at the rate i’m going, i’m gonna be obese.

good thing i had jeff to go halfsies with. at least if i do get to that level, heaven forbid, we’d forklift each other up and about. but for the record, the food wasn’t too bad. i mean, it’s just regular pancakes. nothing fancy. at least it was something. they have quite a range of selection on their menu, actually. kid-friendly food, relatively speaking. not exactly all healthy, depending on how anal you are with your kid’s diet but, you know, something that would prevent kwashiorkor, at least.

kwashiorkor /kwah-shee-awr-kawr/ : severe malnutrition in infants and children especially of impoverished regions caused by a diet low in protein characterized by retarded growth, potbelly, changes in pigmentation, and anemia. (source: here and here.)

interesting. so if someone is on the skinny side but has a huge potbelly, does that mean they have kwashiorkor? asking for a friend of a friend.

the thing i love about this play centre is their spacious toddler zone. i reckon it’s the perfect size for little ones to crawl/walk/run around and explore. raven’s trip was pushing chairs and foam seats from one end to the other. it was good that there weren’t a lot of kids around too. to be honest, having kids around her kind of makes me nervous. i’m scared of her hurting them or them hurting her. she’s a gentle kid but kids are kids and i’m a first-time mom still learning how to navigate the treacherous journey of mothering in public, if you know what i mean.

but she needs a bit of conflict too, i suppose. teaches her how to negotiate. something that comes more naturally to those with siblings. something that, for a split second, made me consider having another one for raven’s sake while sipping my cappuccino. the rush of caffeine jolted me back to reality:

CUTE AS THEY ARE, KIDS ARE HARD WORK, MAN!

so, anyway, sharing with you some photos of that day, including our little side trip to fountain gate to grab brunch where i promised jeff i’d shout him a cup of hot choco from chocolateria san churro but he ended up paying for it (and everything else) because i didn’t have cash on me and was too much of a cheapskate to wanna withdraw money from a different atm and have to pay extra. a very effective strategy.

i’ll make it up to him, for sure. if i don’t forget my wallet at home.

*raven at 1 year and 6 months old