In Kindergarten, I watched the moms and children plan play dates when they picked up their children from school. Leigha stayed to be a peer mentor for the Early Childhood program. Leigha never had a chance to go to other kids' houses after school because we did not live near any of the these kids. I never had a chance to hang outside and meet these parents either, I had a class to get back to.
We also run into the problem that Leigha doesn't know any of the kids in our neighborhood either. In this day and age, you can't just send your kid out into the neighborhood to make new friends. She does enjoy hanging around two of our younger neighbors (one is almost 5 and one is almost 3). I just wish she could find some kids her age, too, but I haven't given her a chance to. Noe wants her to go to my school, no ifs, ands, or buts. However, he just doesn't understand why I won't transfer over to the school we are zoned for. Call me crazy, but I don't want to live around the children I teach. I don't want to have to worry about kids seeing or hearing things they shouldn't or that I wouldn't want plastered all over the school. I don't want parents coming up and talking to me about other teachers.
So on that note, as much as it pained me, I let Leigha have a play date with a student I was a bit hesitant about. I think the best way not to get picked on, is to become friends with that person. Seems to have worked here. We run into the same problems, though. I can't bring a friend over to my house and return them because I don't have enough seats in the back of my car for my kids plus another. If I take Leigha somewhere, I have to return to get her with my crew. It was time to step up to the plate and be a bit inconvenienced for her sake.
Last Saturday, I dropped off Leigha at a friend's house. They wanted to have a sleep over, but I told her that wouldn't happen for a long time. She has had sleep overs before, but at one of MY friend's houses with her daughter. It's bad enough I was dropping her off at some one's house I really don't know. It is comforting for me to know that they know I am a teacher--no escaping my wrath.
Who benefited from this whole ordeal? EVERYONE! I wasn't about to pack up the boys to drop Leigha off and return home, just to have to repeat that a few hours later. Instead, we kept on driving to the other side of the city to meet some of our friends at the park.
It was different this time, in many ways. I arrived about 20 minutes before my friends did. This meant that I had absolutely no help containing my boys, but you know what? It was perfectly fine! I am finely learning to take risks. I let the boys out of the wagon and let them run up and down. They have been in school for 2 weeks now, and I know they work on this. Noah and Robert were really good about running down and up the other side of the grassy ditch. Matthew just wanted to "walk-walk-walk." For twenty minutes, no one ran off on me.
They must have been working on holding hands and staying together in class.
Matthew's determination is amazing, but we have known that since I was pregnant. Not only was he walking up and down these hills, but the grass was so thick and tall that it made walking more difficult. That didn't slow him down one bit!
By the time our friends arrived, my kids were a bit antsy to go play on the equipment. They nibbled a little bit of their food and then they started to wander off a bit more than I liked.
They were more than thrilled to make it over to the equipment, but Mom was anything but thrilled. There were SO MANY people there and it was hard to keep tabs on all three of them. Thankfully Don and Laura help me out. We figure that three of us should be able to keep tabs on six kids.
Look at Matthew, doesn't he look content on that horse (WITH HIS TWO FRONT TEETH)?
I am hoping that this picture isn't of times to come.
Once again, Matthew wasn't going to let anything stop him. He finally let me hold his hand as he crossed the bridge. I guess I should be thankful he let me do that at least!
Noah even felt confident enough to walk across the moving balance beam. Is it true? Are my kids gaining a bit of self-confidence? Watch out world!
Of course, that picture was taken moments before he took off and was nowhere to be found for a few minutes. He saw that we were packing up to go and he took back off for the field we started at. Noah had the biggest, guilty looking smile on his face as Don picked him up. So they have gotten better about staying together, but definitely not perfected!
We drove back to get Leigha and it turns out they had a blast. They didn't have one fight or anything to complain about, other than me not letting her stay the night. So our first official play date at someone else's house was a success.
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1 comment:
It's terrific that Leigha got a play date. I have a bit of the same problem with my Julia. She is in special ed at a school accross town and has yet to have a play date. I think as time goes on I'll be able to let her go. The boys sure are getting on with the independence thing. :)
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