My four-year-old recently survived a playdate in my own home under my supervision. He beat the odds. Barely. Over the winter “break,” I had the pleasure of hanging out with Jordan from This Girl Walks Into A Bar and her two kiddos, the younger of which is a former classmate of William. While the older boys were upstairs doing battle with a variety of Nerf weapons, we seized the opportunity to catch up while the younger ones bounced outside happily on the trampoline. We sat on my family room couch, in front of a row of French doors upon which we could supervise the jumping action.
With everyone under the age of seven blessedly occupied, Jordan and I chatted blogging life and real life. A few glasses of, sadly, plain water later, we heard William yelling from outside. “Mom! Mom!” I’m not an alarmist. I figured they too wanted water or to show us a performance they created. Huh. But why was that yell urgent? And muffled? And why wasn’t William visible on the trampoline with his friend? Strange.
Heading outside to investigate, we quickly realized the answer the above perplexities: Wiliam had been zipped into the giant, water-impermeable bag used to house our sports balls outside. His preschool playmate stood above him, trying to help as he yelled “Mom, I can’t get the zipper undone!” It was quicker to explain to her how to help him out than try to get into the netted entrance to the trampoline, so Jordan and I calmly guided her daughter through the process and out popped William, reborn from an impossibly small space just like a real birth. At which point Jordan and I became semi-hysterical…with laughter and poor parenting skills. (Yes, yes we did lecture them on the dangers of suffocation.)
Some paranoid parents worry about the safety of their children out in the big, bad world. Apparently I have to worry about mine just surviving my watch. So, who wants to have a playdate?
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