Why PlayFULL?
Coming Soon! Exploring the Magic of Denver Metro’s One-of-a-Kind Indoor Playground
When I started dreaming about building an indoor playground or play cafe, the concept that was most important to me was that any person, parent, grandparent, caregiver, kiddo could walk in and exhale. You would feel like this indoor playground was not just created for your child, but also for you to be, to exist, to play. And yes, adults need to play too!
I have walked into so many indoor playgrounds and they are bright primary colors, overstimulating, loud, overwhelming, the list goes on. Don’t get me wrong, my kids LOVE these places, and we go to them as often as they can convince me, but I walk in and my identity is immediately reduced to “parent”, not Liz, not woman, not coffee enthusiast, just parent. And I’m unconvinced that the sugar ridden, arcade stimulated crazed stated that these places leave my children in are actually “child friendly”. But alas, that is for another blog post.
What I didn’t realize before becoming a parent was how much identity shifting happens overnight.
How immediately my needs, even basic needs (sleep, food, water) would become second to this being who now depended on me for everything. There is a word for this, the identity shift that comes with becoming a mother. Although as I type that, shift feels too subtle for my experience. The identity earthquake that comes with becoming a mother. I finally learned this word 5 years into motherhood, matrescence. But somehow even learning that this word existed validated this experience of feeling like I somehow disappeared as the new me, the Mom, took over.
It’s a learning curve, but I don’t think it has to be as identity obliterating as it sometimes feels. At PlayFULL Day Cafe, FULL refers to the fact that your cup deserves to be FULL—as Mama, Dada, caregiver—to even begin to show up for your kids in a nourishing, authentic way. Our vision is that every member of the family is worthy of a FULL cup, and we want to provide avenues to fill your cup. Maybe you need two hours to drink your coffee in peace, read a book, meet a friend, knit, binge watch Bridgerton on your iPad? Whatever fills your cup! If so, sign your little up for the Playfull Place, our supervised childcare room. Your child gets to spend a few hours with peers in a loving, playful environment while you get to take care of yourself in our cafe. Perhaps you only have one day off with your kiddo(s) and you want to take them somewhere to gather with other friends, engage in meaningful play, be present, and NOT clean up, Open Play is the place for you! As you figure out your needs, you get to puzzle piece our offerings together in a way that supports every member of your family in filling their cups.
Trust me, I realize that a full cup is an aspiration.
It does seem to be an impossible balance of everyone’s needs, and I have in no way attained this “full cup”. But the difference is that I now consider it in a way I never did during my first few years as a parent. Not only do I consider it, I feel like I deserve it. The analogy gives me language when I’m feeling depleted and need to attune to my own needs. This idea of a full cup is a daily commitment, a daily choice, some days we will find ways to fill our cup, some days we’ll be down to the last drop. But the more I hold the expectation that I deserve this not only for me, but for my family, the more committed I am to the journey.
And so as we invite you into our blog and our journey of creating Playfull Day Cafe, the newest play cafe to come to the Denver Metro Area.
I ask you, what would fill your cup? What is already filling it? What is depleting it? The first step of this journey for me was in fully acknowledging I was depleted and I was angry. I wasn’t sure what the next steps were, but there had to be some, because in that state I was not the mother I wanted to be for my kids. And slowly this idea began to unfold.
As we begin to share more about our space and offerings I hope you can feel the intentionality that has gone into every choice we make (the wording, the colors, the toys, the menu). Julie and I spend hours discussing our experiences of motherhood and parenting. Acknowledging what we wished we had access to when our kids were littles. That we wish there had been a safe space to talk about the highs, but especially the lows of becoming a parent. I’m really hoping this blog and more importantly, Playfull Day Cafe, is the beginning of creating that space that supports familyhood and all the parts of ourselves that show up in the journey of life and parenting. I hope this will be the beginning of creating a more integrated approach to parenting, an approach that fully embraces our parenting sides, but also our work sides, our creative sides, our dark sides, our joyful sides, our wholeness.
