Play dates rule

Sorry for those of you who are my facebook friends and we've already had this mini-discussion, but it's all I've got today. This morning/afternoon I watched my friend's two kids ages 5 and 2. It was so great! From the moment they were here I was pretty much able to ignore my children. They were so busy with each other that no one cared what I was doing or where I was. What freedom! 


When Moose was little, play dates were a lot more work. You were managing two kids (hopefully not more) who needed constant management, interventions, redirections, and play options so they don't get bored and really get on your nerves. It was a chore, to say the least. However, now that they're older and self-directed it's awesome!


Honestly, my biggest trouble was that they don't have 3 kids. Their oldest is 2 years younger than Moose and only a year older than Monkey, but he's a boy. We've known them since our boys were wee things and their little guy totally looks up to Moose. But Monkey can't be left all by herself right? So of course she asks to play what they're playing. And instead of making things easy and relatively uncomplicated, Moose complains and fights about her playing with them. Ultimately I explain why it's not cool to leave her out. Their games weren't all the intricate, she wasn't ruining anything and he knows it's not cool to leave kids out who want to play. By then Monkey'd given up and was playing with the two little girls. The ironic thing? Monkey sings bits and pieces of a song from the newest version of "My Little Pony" and part of it goes like this, "...big brother best friend forever...". Uh yeah. Not really. Not in our house. But it'd be nice, right?


Now, I'm totally guilty of not having play dates hardly ever. With Moose in school, he can only do them on weekends, and they tend to be kinda busy. Monkey's only got a few friends and I just stopped trying to set up play dates. They both do pre-schools during the week at day intervals I don't care to remember.  It's just more complicated than I care to bother with. But play dates are truly awesome. Perhaps I'll have to put forth the effort every now and then, now that I remember how nice they are for me. Perhaps.