Anatomy of a Playdate

Connor recently had a friend over to play after school. The afternoon went something like this:

I picked them up from school, and struggled mightily to get all three kids strapped into my back seat since there really isn't room for three car seats in a Honda Accord.

On the way home, the two five-year-olds went wild- tons of showing off, and yelling, and (friendly) hitting and biting and kicking, and buckets and buckets of shrieking laughter. While this was a little much in the confines of the car, at least they were glad to see each other.

Chloe spent the car ride trying desperately to be a part of the kindergarten clique, laughing heartily whenever the big kids found something funny, despite the fact that she had no idea what was going on.

Immediately upon arriving at the house, everyone's shoes came off.

At one point during the playdate, I came upstairs to find Connor drawing in his Superman notebook while his friend patiently watched. I quickly explained that a playdate will be remembered more fondly if it actually involves "play."

On two separate occasions, I had to explain to the kids that you should knock rather than just burst through a closed door. This happened once while I was changing into a sports bra (not a dignified endeavor), and again when one of the kids was trying to poop (ditto).

Once the shoes were put back on and the kids were wrestled back into the car, the tearful ride to meet our friend's mother could commence. Connor, taking after me, immediately started planning the next get-together in order to ease the sting of impending separation.

After parting ways, we spent the ride home discussing why, exactly, some people do not stay married. This was a very complicated conversation to have with a five-year-old - in the course of explaining why a relationship might not work, I also had to explain why one does. The discussion was filled with lots of "Why?"s and was frequently interrupted by Chloe's loud rendition of Umbrella by Rhianna. Despite assurances that this was not going to happen in our family, Connor went ahead and claimed his spot in my theoretical bachelorette pad-"just in case."

Eventually Chip got home. I kissed him passionately in front of the kids, just to make sure they felt good about things, then I put on my iPod and ran from the house as fast as I could.