Summer Play-dates…

I would have loved to have gotten some writing done today but I received a call after school from my six year olds’ best friend’s mother. She wanted to set up a play-date for the kids. I hate play-dates. I recalled a time this past summer where I made a promise to myself and to my sanity there would be no more play-dates. There was a time I thought the larger the group of kids, the easier it was to take care of them.  I was the foreman/woman, watching in the wings, only required to step in when the line shift needed diaper changing or there was a swing-set malfunction of some kind.

Well, I take back everything I said about having extra kids around making life easier.

This morning, we went to playgroup but my daughter’s two little friends were no-shows and she was devastated. She sulked and moped through lunch so I told her we could call one of the girls and invite her over. That was my first mistake. Crystal was quick to arrive and REFUSED to play outside. It was beautiful out so I REFUSED right back and said that we were playing outside for a little while and then we’d head inside a little later. She tried all of her six year old tricks to get me to let them into the house. Claiming to have been stung by several bees, said she was going to faint because it was too hot and various trips to the bathroom, for cold drinks and searching for items she claimed she brought with her but probably knew she hadn’t, had my head spinning.

Next it was the neighbours; Michael, Lincoln and their cousin Alice. With our three kids on our side of the fence and their three on their side, Michael (age 5) started swinging an aluminum baseball bat in an attempt to attack the girls. It was fairly harmless as unless our kids had their faces pressed up against the wire fencing, there was no way he could hurt them. When he knew he couldn’t make direct contact with anybody, he ran to his garden shed and returned in a full Braveheart lunge with a five foot long pair of fiskers for weeding and javelined the thing right into the fence at the girls. I screamed at the top of my lungs as his caretakers were on the other side of the yard. He then looked at me and said; “okay,” but was quick to come back, this time with a huge pair of shrub clippers and again stabbed them through the fence. I COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EYES AND KNEW RIGHT THEN AND THERE I WOULD HAVE DOLED OUT MY VERY FIRST BARE BUM SPANKING HAD HE BEEN ON MY SIDE OF THE FENCE.


Next, the three kids came over to our yard where the six played together as though they were all the best of friends.

Lincoln, whose face was covered in backyard goo as is often the case with little boys, came up to the deck with long, black strips of snot stuck to his nose. I gagged twice before realizing it was actually grass that was stuck to dry snot and not actually black snot. Regardless, it was disgusting. My daughter handed him her water bottle which he happily drank from and passed it to his cousin who took a big swig as well. When the bottle was passed back to my daughter, things went from fast forward to slow motion and I yelped; “Put that drink down right now, do not drink it!!!!” She looked at me long enough to process what I had just screamed and proceeded to take a lengthy drink of the water. I thought I was going to collapse.

The phone rings. It’s my daughter’s teacher. She wants to know if I would like to separate my daughter and Crystal for grade 1 next year or keep them together. I felt like strangling them both.

They washed the slide with water and paintbrushes and then slid down until their pants were soaked. Crystal asked if they could take off their pants and run around in their underwear. I wouldn’t let them. She couldn’t understand why. I didn’t need her Mom picking her up half naked with a pair of fiskers stuck to her temple.

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