THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 11, 1996 TAG: 9608070039
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 122 lines
SHEETS OF RAIN are slicing through the sky. The streets are rivers, and the morning is black-clouded and dark. It's a good day to stay home.
Unless half a dozen kids are about to be dropped at your door.
Just after 10, Amy Turner bursts into Patti Fuller's house in Virginia Beach.
``Boy, is it raining,'' she says, hair wet, T-shirt soaked. She opens her arms and sets down a damp bundle named Catie, who is 2 1/2. Catie heads right for a gaggle of children scavenging for toys in the middle of the living room. ``I'll be right back. Have to go get Amanda.''
Gray, Alex, Kyle, Catie and, in just a minute, Amanda, too. How lucky can Fuller get?
She could run out and hide till it's over. But she doesn't. It's her turn to give other moms a morning out.
Welcome to Free 'N' Play, a chance for a few friends to get three hours to themselves while a couple of other moms baby-sit and pray for next week when it's their turn to go kidless.
A summer deluge is nothing. It would be worse to miss this once-a-week opportunity to run errands, work out, get a haircut, or have a lunch where ketchup is not the main course and nobody spills her milk. This group of seven moms alternates weeks, some of the women baby-sitting while the rest are footloose and fancy free from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
When Fuller's turn comes around, she relishes the free time to run errands without her daughter, Claire, a beruffled 2 1/2-year-old.
``You can make 10 stops in three hours without Claire, compared to three stops by the time you get her in and out of the car seat,'' says Fuller, who is expecting her second child in September.
Right now, 10 minutes into this play group, Claire is marching around her living room. The spout of a purple sippy-cup is clenched between her teeth and she's suspiciously eyeing the kids who have their chubby hands all over her stuff.
So far, so good.
Fuller has doughnuts in the house and is perking coffee to rev up the mommies who are staying to help.
``I'll give 'em lunch,'' Fuller says, looking past the rain to the bright side. ``That takes time.''
Turner hustles in with Amanda, 9 months old, and settles her in front of the fireplace beside a basket of kitchen toys. She knows what she's doing to Fuller.
On the days that it's Turner's turn to help watch the kids she says time creeps by.
``It's hectic, it's loud and the time goes by relatively slowly,'' she says. ``But when you're the one who's free, your time is gone before you know it.''
Eager to get on the road, she kisses her girls and runs back out. On the floor, Amanda turns to study Gray Crigger, 2, who is sucking the foot of a Barbie doll.
A few miles away, his mom, Meredith, is home with her feet up, propped up on her sofa with a pillow and a new novel. The house is silent. Dead silent.
``I live for when he's there,'' she confides. ``Nothing will keep me from taking him.''
Gray, she says, is at that awkward stage where mother's errands are a toddler's torture.
``He's getting really hard to take anywhere,'' says Crigger. ``I go grocery shopping at 9 at night even, and right now he wants nothing to do with the car. I have to bribe him with candy to get in.''
Crigger lucked into this play group when she joined a mother's organization called MOMS Group. The acronym for the 5-year-old, 65-member support group stands for ``Moms Offering Mothers Support.''
``A lot of mothers make the decision to stay home with their children because they felt it would be best for the children,'' says Jackie Feather, president of the MOMS Group. ``Then you discover it isn't the idyllic situation you thought it would be. Staying at home with two children or even one can be very soul-destroying if you don't have any support.''
The group plans outings for mothers and children, for mothers alone and for entire families. The August calendar covers the gamut - everything from a book club for moms to pool parties, crafts and visits to local parks.
And, of course, the Free 'N' Play gatherings.
There are four such play groups in Hampton Roads. As more mothers want to join, more Free 'N' Plays open up, says Marsha Murphy, who organizes the groups. When starting one, she considers geography as well as the number of kids per mom so the rotated baby-sitting chore isn't overwhelming.
Amy Turner loves this day of the week. She's raced clear to Chesapeake to work out to the clank of weights and whirr of Lifecycles and treadmills at New Fitness for Ladies on Centerville Turnpike.
As Turner churns away on a StairMaster, she has a choice of two TVs to watch. Neither set is tuned to cartoons.
``It's so nice to be able to do what I want to do and not worry about anybody else,'' she says.
But the morning isn't all self-indulgence. A few miles away in Norfolk, Vicki Petersen is using her free time catch up on her volunteer job at the American Red Cross office on Brambleton Avenue in Norfolk.
Nothing but grownups here, either.
Just a desk, a phone and other Red Cross workers to talk to. Petersen recruits volunteers for the organization.
It's unusual to find her here on a Thursday. Normally she uses the Free 'N' Plays for herself while her boys, Kyle, 5, and Alex, 2, are being looked after.
``I don't even plan what I do,'' she says. ``I just do what I need to do that day. I go to lunch with friends or go shopping - that's fun to do without the kids. What's nice about the 10-to-1 time frame is you can fit a lunch in there and it's late enough in the morning that the stores are open.''
Back at Patti Fuller's house in Virginia Beach, the store is closing. As soon as Claire's buddies have cleared out, she and her mom are taking a nap.
In the past three hours, Fuller and her helpers have served up hot dogs, grapes and chips to nine children. They've changed diapers, refereed tussles and listened to Barney sing one sugary sweet song after another on TV.
``Basically, it's crowd control,'' laughs Fuller.
By 1:15, Catie, Amanda and Gray have gone home. The bow in Claire's hair is lopsided. And Petersen arrives to pick up her boys.
It's still raining and they'll be stuck in the house the rest of the day.
Who cares? She's had a break.
``Mom!'' shouts Alex, and tackles her right at the knees. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by CANDICE CUSIC, The Virginian-Pilot
Above: Amy Turner burns up the StairMaster at her health club after
leaving her children, Catie and Amanda, with Patti Fuller. Fuller
and Turner are members of Free 'n' Play, a rotating child-care
group.
Below: A frazzled Paul Crigger sits with his son, Gray, before
leaving him at Fuller's house. Paul's wife, Meredith, usually drops
Gray off. by CNB