Friend for the Afternoon

Remember the days when your mom would let you have a friend over for the afternoon?  Oh the anticipation of it all...

What would you play first?  Will they think your rooms is cool?  What should you wear?  How long can they stay?  You wonder if they can spend the night?  Maybe you'll invent or discover something.  It was like having the whole world open up for an entire afternoon.

The days the kids convince me to let them have playdates...  all THREE of them,  oh the anticipation I have for it to end...

Saturday was that day.

To kids it becomes a countdown for the arrival of their bff.  To the parent, it's like hosting a birthday party without a birthday.

As Ross and Maisie have gotten older, playdates are easier.  The kids are more mature, reasonable and self conscience.  That's a good thing. 

But if two of your kids have a friend over to play, odds are the third will experience psychological damage from being left out.

Therefore, you cross your fingers, say a prayer and go with it.

When a playdate starts at 1:00, (aka naptime) things can get hairy.  Within 20 minutes of Molly's friends' arrival Molly, decided against sharing her Power Wheels  and was sobbing at the bottom of the steps in the fetal position with snot rolling out her nose.  We still had 2 hours and 40 minutes left.

Intervention time.

I alternate Barbies and Oreida French-fries over the next hour to keep them from crying or screaming at the other. 

The next thing I know, Mike is disciplining the girls (kindly of course) in the basement for pulling handfuls of spray foam insulation out of the wall. 

One hour to go. 

I insisted the girls test a recipe for Microwave Mug Brownies, which my students are making this week for their microwave unit.  I was glad I did, because I learned the flour needs to be completely stirred into the wet ingredients or the brownies will look like they have worms. 

Food Science.  It's a curious thing.

The little girls go outside while the big girls smear another layer of eyeshadow and blush over their faces.

After being outside less than 5 minutes, the guests' dad arrived to pick them up.  Molly runs inside bawling she wont have anyone to play with now. 

I check the clock and consider taking a shot of something strong and hot.  But it's only 3:15, one of my girls is bawling, the other is trying to hide in the basement with her friend, Mike is attempting to explain the thermal heat regulating system to me as I wonder if Molly peed in her pants of if the wet spot it just snow or Kool-aid and my boy left for Des Moines with his friend. 

But when it's over you feel you've scaled a mountain.  And in a small way, you have.

Pose 1

Pose 2 (where the three on the left decided to raise a shoulder)

Pose 3 (where the older 2 are doing a chin pose, our young guest is doing a double shoulder pose and Molly still has no clue what's going on)

A crazy pose (Molly's still unaware).  And yes, my kids are the ones without socks.

you might be wondering where the girls are sitting?

They're on a rug, on a mattress, leaning against the insulation in the basement. 

BFF's

Also, if you'd like to check out this lovely ladys' blog, please visit

http://maisieingrid.blogspot.com/