Playdates

I am not one of those moms who has it all together.  I’m the farthest thing from glamorous, I have no sense of style, and I am not really in touch with the latest trends.  In fact, the last trend I followed was the great spandex fad of the 80’s.  Yep.  Really.  I prefer to wear jeans and a tee shirt or sweat shirt as my “go out” clothes.  For my “stay home” clothes, I love being in my jammies.  Since I’m not trendy, I imagine I am unconventional in my parenting.  I don’t try to be different, I just try to do the best I know how to do, and be satisfied with that.  When something doesn’t work, I chalk it up to a learning experience, and go from there. 

Asking for a play date for Line was a new experience for me.  Even though there are a couple of girls who live in town, Line has had little interaction with them outside of school.  Probably because they are young yet, and they do not have the desire to wander too far from us, my kids haven’t asked to go to any of their friends’ homes, or to have any of their classmates over to the house.  They have asked for their cousins, friends from daycare, and some of their out of town friends to come over, but none from school.  Once last year, after one of her classmates had a birthday party, Line asked to have her classmates over for her birthday, but not to have them over just to play.  So, I thought I’d just take a chance and ask one of the moms of one of the few girls who live here in town, if her daughter would be interested in going out to lunch and to swim with us.  She was, so we planned a play date for today.

Let me start by saying I didn’t get a head start on November.  Not at all.  In fact, truth be told, my housework has been frozen since dad went to the hospital the second week of September.  It’s not that I haven’t had time here and there, I just haven’t had a good length of time to fit an entire project (start to finish) in.  So, I’ve only been able to do the very basic upkeep, and I only have time to do that on Saturdays or Sundays, but rarely do I have an entire weekend with which to take care of my home.  Not to mention… it’s getting colder, and the days to be outside and play are numbered.  I am of the belief that the house will keep.  Sure, things have to be clean, but they don’t have to be organized or sanitary in order for us to live here.  They just have to be healthy.  I can’t justify my need to organize, purge, and sanitize everything to take precedence over the children’s need to be outside and playing and making memories.  So, truth be told, I’ve played more than I’ve cleaned the past month and a half.  But I didn’t plan on having the play date at my house!

Like the good planner that I am, I purposed to take the girls to lunch at McDonald’s (I know, I’m shaking my head right now too), and then to swim at the Community Y after that.  So it would be a quick day, right?  Hour for lunch, two hours of swimming, drop the friend off, back home in time for a late afternoon nap; or so I thought.

After swimming, my first grade friends wanted to hang out at our house.  I explained that I hadn’t done my housework this week, and so it would be a pit, but that they were welcome to hang out, if her mom said it was alright.  Of course mom said it was alright!  So, with trepidation and fear of being judged by a six year old, I opened the door to my house, praying the fairy came while we were out.

Sadly, the fairy missed our house.  The dog hair was still all over the floor, and the laundry was still sitting in baskets in front of the couch.  Fortunately, my life-saving husband had folded it while we were swimming.  Dishes were still soaking in cold, day old dishwater, and pans still held court on the stove top.  With jubilant cheers, the girls came in, took off their shoes and ran upstairs, the sore old mother lagging behind.  I asked Line’s friend to put on a pair of her socks, because we have hardwood floors, and the girls wore their flip flops home from the pool.  Barefoot in early November is not really smart, even though the high was around 65.  She patronized me and happily put the pink socks on that I handed her.  Line followed suit, even though she usually prefers to be barefoot.

I left them to their first grade girl activities and went downstairs to perform the flight-of-the-bumblebee cleanup.  Dishes, and laundry going at the same time, because that’s the quickest and easiest messes to clean.  Toilet was next, but I never did get to the bathroom mirror, because soon the girls were down in the living room.  The living room which hadn’t been swept since last Sunday!!  The girls had brought down their items to play “store”, and were spreading out on that hairy floor so fast, I barely got out “Stop!” before they had rang up the first sale.  I asked them to give me a second to sweep quickly, and they obliged by going upstairs to get more items to sell.  After that mad dash, the girls set up their store while I went to the dining room to sweep in there.  I offered them snacks after the sweeping frenzy, and they happily ate their popsicles while watching “Frozen” on the living room TV.

Soon after they finished their snacks, they decided that they would like to play outside.  Since they were quite dry from the pool, and the weather had warmed up above 60, I said that would be fine.  Before long, they wanted to ride bikes.  I got the bikes down from the rafters, and gave them instructions on where they could ride.  Within ten minutes, they were back inside.  Wanting me to ride.

Let me just tell you this:  I no longer enjoy riding bikes.  I have ridden a bike ever since the day I learned how.  I rode bikes all around town to escape my chores, my sisters, my parents, and sometimes, my life.  I rode bikes when I was a teenager, because I liked freedom.  I loved to ride to the next town over, which was seven miles one way.  I enjoyed riding because I could do it without being clumbsy or having to have much skill or practice.  I loved riding bikes.  I quit riding bikes when I graduated high school.  I had a car, a life, and I did not feel the need to be on a bike when I could be socializing through the window of my car in a parking lot.  Last year, Line won a bike at the school carnival.  Remember, the night she was supposed to be thinking about the consequence for stealing?  Yeah, that bike.  Well, she asked me to go for a bike ride with her once, on Mother’s day, so I rode that bike.  We rode six miles, and I will say this: no saddle ever hurt me as bad as that darn bike seat.  I vowed never to ride it again.

Except now, I had my daughter and her friend giving me some sort of six year old peer pressure to ride that stinking bike.  Because who says no to a good bike ride with their kid?  So, I got on that dang bike, and I rode it around town, and I did not complain or whine or even let on that my lower half felt like a broken spoke.  Nope, not even a peep.  We rode up to the school and played there, riding the bullet until their arms were limp noodles.  Still, they weren’t done playing.  We rode around some more, and finally headed home, where the girls traded their bikes for fingernail polish and makeup.  

I was famished, so I thought they might be hungry, after all, it was 5:30 in the evening.  I thought I’d better feed them, so I texted the mother of the girl who was over, and asked her if staying for supper was an option.  The parents were going to be dining with some of their friends, and said it would be fine for their daughter to stay on at our house, but I thought I’d better ask her if she wanted to stay here or go with her parents.  Initially, she wanted to stay, but then changed her mind.

The dualathlon finally ended around 6:30, and both girls were exhausted.  Okay, all three girls were exhausted.  And the home made pizza was done just in time for the boys to arrive back home.  Needless to say, it was a fun filled day!  I am ready for another play date again sometime!  But I need a couple of weeks to recuperate!