loose lips
Lucy's preschool teacher has been bugging me forever to organize some playdates for her with some of the girls in her class. I have been dragging my feet doing this for months. I'll happily drive two hours a day every day this summer to the other side of the bay for some experimental auditory processing therapy treatment, but get on the phone to voluntarily talk to another kid's mom? Not that excited. Gosh, I can't imagine where Lucy's aversion to social interaction might come from.
But then one of Lucy's other entourage members started bugging me too, telling me how it will help her so much at school if she started spending time with a few of the kids in the afternoons. OKAY, OKAY, I get it.
So I e-mailed (not called) two parents. I guess I didn't think things out from their perspective, but for some reason they weren't at all averse to me picking up their kids from school, entertaining them for a few hours, and then delivering them home for dinner exhausted and ready to sleep.
We had our first two playdates with school friends last week. It was surprisingly fun, and somewhat eye-opening. The biggest thing I learned: don't tell Lucy anything I don't want the rest of the school knowing. These kids have big mouths.
For example, we have been doing another round of lab tests for which I needed to procure some, um, samples. I told the girls to go to the bathroom before we headed off for the pool, and I heard Lucy say to her friend as they skipped down the hall, "Do you want to pee in a bowl? Sometimes I like to pee in a bowl -- it's crazy!"
Later, in the car ride to the pool, her friend started chatting about her family. "My mom likes to go salsa dancing. She goes dancing every night in [the town three towns over.] She loves salsa music. My dad doesn't like to go so he stays home with me every night while she goes dancing."
I'm not sure I'm ready for Lucy to start going on unsupervised playdates at other people's houses, mostly because I feel like I need to be around in case she starts talking about how the waitresses at Chevy's get her mommy's margarita started when they see us walk in the door, or how we never had fruit in the house until Tessa came along and became the first member of the family to voluntarily eat produce.
But then one of Lucy's other entourage members started bugging me too, telling me how it will help her so much at school if she started spending time with a few of the kids in the afternoons. OKAY, OKAY, I get it.
So I e-mailed (not called) two parents. I guess I didn't think things out from their perspective, but for some reason they weren't at all averse to me picking up their kids from school, entertaining them for a few hours, and then delivering them home for dinner exhausted and ready to sleep.
We had our first two playdates with school friends last week. It was surprisingly fun, and somewhat eye-opening. The biggest thing I learned: don't tell Lucy anything I don't want the rest of the school knowing. These kids have big mouths.
For example, we have been doing another round of lab tests for which I needed to procure some, um, samples. I told the girls to go to the bathroom before we headed off for the pool, and I heard Lucy say to her friend as they skipped down the hall, "Do you want to pee in a bowl? Sometimes I like to pee in a bowl -- it's crazy!"
Later, in the car ride to the pool, her friend started chatting about her family. "My mom likes to go salsa dancing. She goes dancing every night in [the town three towns over.] She loves salsa music. My dad doesn't like to go so he stays home with me every night while she goes dancing."
I'm not sure I'm ready for Lucy to start going on unsupervised playdates at other people's houses, mostly because I feel like I need to be around in case she starts talking about how the waitresses at Chevy's get her mommy's margarita started when they see us walk in the door, or how we never had fruit in the house until Tessa came along and became the first member of the family to voluntarily eat produce.
When I was about half Lucy's age, a woman behind us in line at the supermarket was chatting me up as I sat in the cart, and asked if I grew from my mommy's belly. Apparently I disliked cutesy just as much then as I do now, because very clearly I said, "No, I grew in her uterus" and then proceeded to explain how I got there. Oh and this was the late 70's, when supermarkets had microphones for cashiers to announce when they needed a pricecheck. Of course it was on... My mother was so ... proud. Or something.
Yeah, you really can't tell them anything, can you? I'm finally learning to watch my mouth -- but I'm a slow learner.
My most humiliating loose lips moment was when my oldest (then in 1st grade) assumed we were alcoholics because, well, we consumed alcohol. Ergo, one is alcoholic. She didn't know the negative connotation of the word.
This also happened to be the same year that I purchased a little elf doll thingy that you placed on top of a wine bottle and - voila - I had a creative Christmas decoration. She told ALL her classmates about her mom's creative talent. "Yeah...my mom made an elf out of a wine bottle."
Your girls are beautiful and growing up so quickly.