Thursday, September 10, 2009

On Play Dates...

Today is Thursday and that means play date day! Wednesday and I both look forward to this day for essentially the same reasons. She loves her playmate Sydney and I love my mommy playdate Tara. We have a standing date on Thursday afternoons to get the kids together and let them run around like monkeys for a couple of hours. It just keeps getting better every week.

When we started the play dates the babes were a couple months shy of their second birthdays. They were well socialized with adults but not really kids, especially their own age. don't get me wrong, they were both great with others neither being biters or hitters or even snatchers of toys really. They just didn't have a lot of experience with kids of a like age. So we have tried to get them together once a week since mid summer with great success.

Each week we watch their development as children with both their cognitive and fine motor skills but even more so we see them develop socially with each other both on a superficial level but on a friendship sort of level as well. In the beginning they played in the same room or in the same yard but not so much with each other. One would play with a toy and they other would take an interest, that was about the level of interaction you could expect the first couple weeks. But as the weeks went on they would begin to participate in the same activities together until one day they were actually playing with each other. They would shout the same words for fun and shout at each other in jest. And now Wednesday not only knows where Sydney lives and asks to play with her but she talks to her on her play phones and in the truck when amusing herself. Sydney has become a part of Wednesday's life just like friends do.

This warms my heart to the core. I could ask for a more perfectly paced friendship to form. I love to watch their development as little people and likewise little social people. Sydney is a wonderful child who is quite bright and incredibly active. A more perfect playmate I think we could not ask for.

As for the mommy, well we have a bit of history (not really but kind of and all good) we knew each other briefly in high school so it was not so strange a meeting. The meeting as moms was arranged by a mutual best friend who had managed to stay friends with the both of us since high school. She set us up when she realized we lived just a couple blocks away from each other with little girls who were less than two months apart in age. Bless her heart.

More than having a mom who thinks and parents very very very similar to me (which is a blessing let me tell you) but she is around the age as me, a stay at home mom like me, reads many of the books as me and funny as heck. So it is not just about Wednesday having a radical playmate but me too. We can talk about mommy stuff and agree on just about everything, we can talk about non mommy stuff and if we don't agree we can agree to disagree. We have started a 'Mommy Movie Night' once a month. We went to see Inglorious Basterds last week and the night was great with good food and conversation and the movie was awesome with Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino! We are hoping to see Sherlock Homes next but I am not sure when the release date is so who knows but whatever it is is will most likely be violent because we like it that way. She even gets along really well with Ron as sometimes he joins our play dates.

Speaking of Ron and husbands hers and mine also have a lot in common and get along well. So this toddler play date is slowly turning into family play dates and really that is what it is about right? Friendships on all levels. Support networks? Understanding your neighbor?

But sometimes, it is just about little girls being little girls.

water fun (19)
In June

Awwwwwwww
Last month

Playdates and Popsicles
Last Week

Happy Thursday~!