"Moon Bounce Church"

Our MOPS group had an indoor play date in the church’s gym last week. We had a moon bounce and moms brought their bikes, scooters, and ride-on toys. The moms also brought picnic lunches. At some point the gym started to get crowded and some moms went out to the playground to enjoy the nice, comfortable, low humidity day. This is a relatively easy event for Michelle and me to plan and execute. One of our fabulous mentor moms manned the moon bounce for the second year in a row. She made sure that we never had an unsafe number of kids in the bounce. She stuck to the schedule of the under three crowd for thirty minutes and the three and above crowd for thirty minutes. Since this was three days before his birthday, Wesley did double dip a few times, but I tried to make sure no one was waiting for a turn when he climbed in.

Lydia had a turn in the moon bounce before anyone else got there and right before we turned off the switch to deflate it. She also enjoyed scribbling with crayons on big pieces of paper that we had taped to the floor. Yes, she did nibble on some of them. She also enjoyed pushing some of the ride-on toys and riding on them. I did notice that if another kid had the toy she wanted, she was usually able to get it without the other kid walking away crying.

Wesley learned how to really ride his tricycle on the flat, smooth gym floor. He had been trying to ride in our driveway and on the sidewalk but he could only pedal a short distance. As soon as he got on his tricycle in the gym, he was able to go all the way across the gym and turn around and come back. He was trilled!

Tonight, Wesley wanted to ride his tricycle in our neighborhood and we were pleasantly surprised at how well he did. He was even able to pedal up hill a little bit. I had to slow the tricycle down when he rode downhill. On the flat bike trail he could go pretty fast. He did get very tired and I had to carry him home (uphill) while Chris carried the tricycle and Lydia.

The day after the indoor play date we drove out to Burke to pick up Wesley’s birthday cake. When we passed Burke Community Church, he asked, “What is that building?” So I told him and then I asked, “What church do we go to?” He immediately said, “Moon Bounce Church!” (We go to Immanuel Bible Church.)

Wesley now regularly wants to say the blessing at dinner. We sometimes have to remind him to thank God for the food but he is getting very good at thanking God for “Mommy, Daddy, and Lydia” and for the fun things he enjoys. For instance last night he said, “thank you for us going to playground and for us playing play dough.” For a few evenings after the indoor play date we heard, "Thank you for the moon bounce."