Gwen's 1:1 Day with Mom and Dad

I have been so excited to have a 1:1 date with Gwen. It has felt like she's really needed it lately. I realized she's been overlooked a bit, but mostly because she's shyer and just prefers to be in the background rather than front and center. However, with all that I knew she'd benefit from having some good dates.

I decided I wanted to take her to the aquarium. When we got there, I knew it would be best to let her lead the way. She kept saying she didn't want to go to the shark area because sharks were scary and I thought that was funny because it's my favorite spot, so I just let her decide. I realized she doesn't have a great sense of direction because we ended up where the bees are several, SEVERAL times haha. But she seemed to really like leading the way and deciding where we went. I did help her a couple times, where I told her "If we go this way that's the jelly fish" so she'd go that way. 

I ended up convincing her to go to the shark area and she loved it, which I knew she would, so that was a win. When we were there, it was getting close to lunch time and I was getting so hungry, so I asked her if she wanted to eat, and she said she wasn't hungry yet. We walked past the little food area, and she asked if that was where we were getting lunch, but I told her no, we'd get lunch somewhere else. She then decided she wanted to take the elevator upstairs. When we did, she saw tables and said she wanted to eat there so I told her we could go get a snack at the food place and bring it back up to eat. We got a cake pop for her and some chips for me (the garden salsa sun chips). Her cake pop was actually really good, but she also wanted to have some of my chips too haha. After that I convinced her we should go get lunch, so we went to Penny Ann's Cafe. I heard so many good things about it, so I was excited to try it. 

Oddly enough they sat us at the counter, rather than a table. I think they tend to do that with parties of two because there ended up being a few of us by the time we were done. I got Gwen a grilled cheese and I got a burger. Mine came with a pickle, which I love, and Gwen asked me for a bite and ended up eating more of that than I got haha. We finished up and headed home and Gwen kept saying she had such a fun day with me. I was SO happy. I think her getting to choose so much of where we went made her come out of her shell a bit more and gave us some good bonding moments.

I got home and we put the girls down for a nap. Poor Cara caught pink eye and has been so goopy in her eyes, so sleeping is good, but she has a hard time waking up because her eyes are gooped together.

After their nap Larry took Gwen out. He decided since we had SO many Nickel City cards and she didn't get a ton of time to play at her party that it would be fun to take her to do that. From the sounds of it they also had a really great time. Especially since she could decide what games they played, and he'd play with her and only her. There was no split attention. After that he took her out to Leatherby's for dinner and ice cream. 

They got home right before bedtime and Gwen kept talking about how she had so much fun. They came home with some fun little prizes that she couldn't wait to show Cara. 

I absolutely love that we've started doing 1:1 dates with the girls (we aim to do 2 a year for all kids). They seem to love them, and I look forward to how it helps us bond with them in the future.