If you’ve ever been a stay-at-home mom or dad in the winter, you’ll understand why I am working on this. It’s very easy to feel overwhelmed, depressed or just plain claustrophobic when you are stuck inside day after day with nowhere to go with your little one.

About a month ago, I posted about a group of moms organizing an indoor play center for Fairfield. Here is an update.

The Park and Recreation Department has agreed to house the play center in the Roosevelt Center! Yahoo! Thank-you Parks and Recs!

Now, all we have to do is raise the money. ;-) Around $15,000. We are looking at a number of different ways to raise funds. One nice thing is all donations can be tax-deductible due to Parks and Rec’s Foundation.

We will have a booth at the indoor market to sell baked goods and crafts like cards. There will also be a craft table for the kids. We will approach the local clubs, organizations and businesses and there will be donation jars placed around town.

Please keep an eye out for us and help when you can! If you would like to volunteer to help with the Indoor Market please email me at dawn.merydith(@)gmail.com

Below is a letter sent out on the mom’s yahoo group, FairfieldVedicCityIowaMomsGroup (at) yahoogroups.com. I thought others would be interested as well.

Fairfield is a great place to raise a family, I think we can all agree. We have many wonderful parks, playgrounds, trails and places for families to go in the warmer months. However, during the colder months or on those sweltering summer days there are few indoor options for our children.

A group of Fairfield mothers has formed an ad hoc group to establish an indoor playground for our community. If you would be interested in an indoor playground please email me at dawn.merydith (at) gmail.com with your name and address, how many children you have that would use the facility and their ages. Also, please let us know if you would be willing to pay a small fee to use it, if you would like to volunteer to establish the playground and if you would donate money to help create it.

Thank You,

Friends of Fairfield Park and Rec’s Indoor Playground

I am in Kansas City doing my wifey duty of assisting my mother-in-law find an apartment. She is relocating from Phoenix.

After driving four hours while listening to my husband talk on his iPhone for work and at the SAME TIME talk to my four year old about Pippy Longstalkings, we pull in to find the hotel has no pool, the toilet does not flush, and we feared the sheets smelled worse than the room. After an hour at the desk and on the phone we manage to switch hotels (this is the one time it is a pain to go with Expedia).

By the time we make it to the Mexican restaurant I am really ready for a beer with my taco salad.

And the next day, after spending the day talking about the weather with my mother-in-law and hanging out for hours in a restaurant/shop that is the epitome of sensory overload, I was really ready for a glass a wine with my Italian food.

I expressed this sentiment and my mother-in-law asked, in that mother-in-law way, “do you drink everyday?” I managed to be nice. And for the record I don’t have a drink even weekly. AND did I have a drink? You bet I did.

Today I drove around with my mother-in-law and my daughter while my husband was off at a business meeting. We managed to get lost two times, eat at a sub-shop and shop at Super Target. While being asked again if I have ever shopped at Target and simultaneously asked if Hello Kitty had a sister, I thought about harry carey.

I am really ready for my bed but I don’t have that. I will settle for another drink at dinner. It will give my mother-in-law something to talk about other than the weather and Super Target.