You know, my oldest daughter is six and a half years old, and the whole idea of a playdate still seems kind of silly. When I was a kid, my mom just booted us out the door, and we sometimes wouldn't come home until dinner. She didn't have to keep sharp tabs on us, or watch us as we went to the park or anything. It's such a pain. And my poor, socially-deprived children are suffering for it, because I'm too busy/lazy to set them up.
We had our first-ever arranged playdate (I'm not counting babysitting someone's kids, or getting together with a friend that just happened to have kids, too) just before the Christmas holiday. The two little girls in Bethany's carpool, Megan Hall and Macy Hansen, came home with us. It was actually kind of fun. I'd made sugar cookie dough that morning, and they all gather around the kitchen island on chairs and stools and picked out cookie cutters and made their own cookies. I had enough aprons for all the girls (my Meagan included), but not Sean. It didn't bother him, much, though. He had a blast playing in the flour.
After they'd all cut out about 6-8 cookies each, I put Sean down for a nap, sent the girls to the basement and finished up the baking the cookies. Then I made several colors of frosting and set out most of the various sprinkles and colored sugars we had. They all had fun, I got to do my sugar cookie decorating for the year, and didn't have tons of them left over for me to eat.
Well, ever since then, Bethany has been begging for another playdate. I've kind of waited until it was my turn to drive kids home from school again before arranging much. We're finally going to have another one this Friday with the same girls. Unfortunately, I have now Set the Bar. Bethany wants to do cookies again. I wouldn't do anything as elaborate as last time, of course, but I was thinking of snickerdoodles (they could roll the dough into balls and put them in the cinnamon sugar) or peanut butter cookies (they can roll the dough and them smash them with a fork). If I do this, though, I may just be setting myself up for the expectation that every time we have a Playdate at the Terry's, there will be some kind of activity like this. Part of me thinks that could be fun, and then there's the practical side of me that says I could get tired of it awfully quickly. Especially once Meagan starts kindergarten this fall and wants to start having playdates of her own. Hmmm...decisions, decisions.
2 comments:
Thanks for inviting my kids to crash your playdate. Maddie had a ton of fun! I have socially deprived kids, too. ;)
I agree with you... it's exhausting being the kids' social director. Like you, I grew up wandering the neighborhood and seeing what games the neighborhood kids had going. My mom had no idea where I was. She just stood on the front porch and hollered my name when she wanted me back. Nowadays, we're all so afraid of the kidnapper van and the pedophiles, that our kids stay cooped up inside. Plus, there ARE no neighborhood kids playing games anymore. They're all at daycare. Such different times...
I've been wondering how people do it now, I'm not sure I like the idea of my kid wandering the neighborhood. If he stayed on this side of the street-fine, but the trailers across the street attract, well, let's just say the police are there more than I'd like. Luckily there is a boy four months younger than Everett a few houses away-I'd probably be ok for him to run down there.
Have fun with the playdate! What did you decide to do?
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