Twins, Basil; Twins!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ficklepicklefun

Ahhhh, the wonders of the Playdate.  They used to be an opportunity for me to hang out with other moms while our kids threw blocks and bit each other.  I didn’t think anything could top these Toddler Playdates.

But that is just because I’d yet to be exposed to the wonders of the Kindergarten Playdate.  These are infinitely better, because I’m no longer required to be present for them.

Kindergarten Playdates really free me up to do important things, like paint the kitchen or surf the Internet.  It doesn’t matter if the playdate is occurring at my house or someone else’s: either way, my child is entertained by another child, and is no longer using my legs as a jungle gym to hang from while concurrently moaning, “I’m BORRRRED.”

When I’m hosting a playdate, there’s really nothing I have to do, besides throwing a PB &J their way and occasionally making sure they’re all still breathing up there in Mr. C’s room (a task made infinitely simpler to do from my downstairs-position by the fact that they’re usually all YELLING the entire time they’re together).  I don’t even have to clean the house to impress anyone first.

Sure, I kind of miss the social interaction of having another mother over, but it certainly saves me from having to hang out with a boring parent simply because my child had the poor taste to become friends with THEIR child.  Of course, I’m sure many of these parents feel the same way about me . . . in which case I take it TOTALLY PERSONALLY and am quite offended.  (But I’ll still have their kid over because I need time to watch the latest cute kitten videos on YouTube.)

Yes, Kindergarten Playdates are a godsend, particularly if you’re being raised as an only child.  Most of Mr. C’s playmates have siblings, so they don’t fully appreciate the pure exhilaration that comes from finally getting to play with someone who’s actually your contemporary.  Which may be why they sometimes seem a little taken aback by Mr. C’s behavior on their first playdate together: he turns from a barely-in-control Dr. Banner into a bossy, screaming, jumping, bashing Incredible Hulk.  Oh, he LOOOVES shouting the house rules at his unsuspecting guests. (“YOU HAVE TO WASH YOUR HANDS!  YOU TOUCHED A DOOR THAT I TOUCHED LAST WEEK WITH MY HANDS BEFORE I WASHED THEM, SO NOW THE DOOR IS DIRTY AND YOU HAVE TO WASH YOUR HANDS!  WAIT!  YOU JUST TOUCHED THE WALL!  NOW WE’LL HAVE TO WASH THE WALL!  GO WASH YOUR HANDS!” )  It doesn’t take long for our new guests to figure out that it is appropriate to simply ignore their host and continue joining him in gleefully trashing his room.

We are almost getting a routine down of regular playmates.  I don’t know what happens at their houses, but at ours, it’s much the same:  on Monday, there’s the kid who is deathly afraid of our butterball cat because Mr. C once gave him the impression that the cat would attach herself to his body and bite for no reason.  He good-naturedly follows Mr. C around, is interested in playing nice, quiet board games, and generally makes these the most laid-back of our playdates. 

On Thursday, we have the joy of hosting TWINS.  Both are actually very well-behaved; the only challenge to their visits is that each one seems to be unable to hear any question asked by a parental figure (“Hey, do you boys want a sandwich?  Boys?  BOYS!  Do you want a sandwich?  Hey, Twin One [wait for him to make eye-contact]: Do you want a sandwich?  Hey, Twin Two [wait for him to make eye contact]: Do YOU want a sandwich?”).  I suspect this is not a rude trait, but simply one of self-preservation: as one of four (yes, FOUR) siblings, each child has probably learned that there’s only a 25% chance that an authority figure is really talking to THEM. 

Still, I enjoy having them over, and they seem to enjoy it, too: their favorite game involves Twin One and Mr. C proclaiming Twin Two to be a Bad Guy and running away from him, leaving Twin Two alone in Mr. C’s room to contentedly play on his own . . . which is exactly what he wanted to do.

And then there’s Friday’s child, who asked me for a playdate (because they do that now: they set up the dates themselves) months ago, and I kept putting him off.  Just because I sort of got the sense from my mornings in the classroom that he would be a Bad Influence.  Still, we finally cornered his mom at pick up one day and invited them both over and decided the family was normal-enough.

(Although we have somehow decided that the mom might be a stripper.  Which excites me, because I think it would be cool to be a suburban housewife who hangs out with strippers, plus I could FINALLY learn what to do with that pole in our bedroom).

We’ve had Friday’s Child over a few times, and it’s really been fun.  Yes, the kids are a little more destructive together than with other playmates, but it’s sort of innocent destruction: I think they both just lose a few common-sense brain cells when they’re together, and get into situations before thinking them through.  Hence why they tend to need rescuing from the roof of our chicken coop and why they couldn’t figure out in advance that quietly locking themselves in our basement when Stripper Mom came for pick-up was actually a bad idea.  But still: they give me time to surf the web.

I spent all of last week pleading each mom to let her kid(s) come over to our house that week, because I was hoping they’d return the favor this week: I am out of town for a whole seven days, cruelly dumping Mr. C on Bee and therefore hoping he can pawn off Mr. C on another mother for a few hours over that time-frame.

See what a good wife I am?  I’m scheduling playdates for when I’m gone, baking bread for lunches in advance, and making sure the laundry’s done ahead of schedule.  Perhaps it’s because of my hope fear that the boys won’t know what to do without me.  I suspect, however, that it’s really guilt: this trip seemed like a good idea when I scheduled it months ago, but that was when it was just to be a five-day trip and when Bee and I had no plans to take a vacation together (stupid San Francisco trip; why’d I think you up?).  Now it’s hard to justify the time and expense, and I don’t feel good leaving Mr. C.  Plus there’s the added knowledge that Bee is absolutely horrified to be married to a woman who WANTS to do what I’m currently doing.

I’ll tell you all about it when I’m back.