Last Friday I was super-excited to take my kids on a playdate with my friends Andrea and Bethany. (You can click their names to read about the very interesting playdates I’ve had with them before.) I was super-excited because I hadn’t seen either of them in approximately FOREVER (before Christmas I think) and I was feeling like a hermit after my kids being sick two weeks in a row. So, we planned to meet at Andrea’s son’s preschool because they have a really cool playland there (see exhibit A) and after preschool you can totally stay & play for awhile. And invite your friends to do so as well! And bring their LUNCHES! It’s pretty much amazing.
Exhibit A: Playland at Mitchell’s preschool
We ate our lunch in the eating area outside the playland…that is until Sophie caught a glimpse of the playland (I had strategically sat her with her back to it but dangit she had the audacity to turn around- GRR!) and began screaming and fussing and trying to get down. After about three minutes of this, I decided to stop torturing all the other people in the lunch area and just give up on eating and take my kids to the playland. So I left Beth and Andrea & their kids in the lunch area and took my two into play heaven.
After a couple of minutes, my friends and their kids joined us. My kids were already having a grand time in the playland, and I was trying to converse with my friends while being very nervous that, due to my daughter’s tempestuous personality, I was going to end up here –
Exhibit B:
– with my big ol’ adult body stuffed into a child-sized space trying to get Sophie to come down because she was either a) having so much fun that she never wanted to leave or b) super-pissed about God-knows-what.
Fortunately, all seemed to be going well. Sophie crawled around up in playland like all the big kids and had a great time watching them run and play all around her. So, I relaxed and chatted with Andrea for awhile.
Until I realized Sophie was about to go down this slide:
Exhibit C:
Without actually realizing what she was about to do.
D’oh!
I jumped up and ran over to the slide and caught her as she came down. “Yay Sophie!” I clapped her and tried to convince her that what she had just done was fun and exciting instead of tragic. She was sadly, unmoved by my passion and was just pretty peeved that the slide had tricked her. After a couple of seconds of comfort, however, she decided to go play some more. With a sigh of relief, I returned to my seat and tried once again to talk to Beth and Andrea.
This reprieve lasted just a few minutes, before I heard the unmistakable grating fuss of an angry Sophie, who of course was located approximately here in the playland:
Desperate to avoid a humiliation-and-claustrophobia cocktail, I grabbed Joshua from another area of the playland. “Joshua, can you go up there and see if you can help Sophie? Hurry!” I admonished him. After spending way too long explaining to his friends that he would be right back, Joshua headed into the belly of the playland to see what was wrong with his sister. I watched as he sweetly bargained with her, but she would not be reasoned with. He came back down unsuccessful. “Mommy I think Sophie wants to come down but she wouldn’t let me help her.”
Crap.
I thanked my little helper and tried to come to terms with my fate. I was going in.
I squeezed my un-child-sized rear (well maybe it’s the size of a small child. heh.) up into the narrow ENCLOSED stairway and climbed my way up the TUBE that would lead me to my daughter. Finally, I got up on the platform where there was at least space and daylight. Sophie was glad to see me, but sadly my presence didn’t solve whatever problem she was having. She clung to me and cried forlornly.
“Sophie, do you wanna get down?”
“Noooo!” she howled
“Do you wanna play?”
“Nooooooo!!”
“Do you wanna go down the slide?”
“NOOOOOOOOO!”
I couldn’t make her happy, so I decided we were both getting out of there. Unfortunately, due to the size of my aforementioned rear, it was not going to be possible to go out the way I came in the playland’s bowels.
We were going to have to do down the slide.
(Just like Playgroups are no place for children. Which is an excellent blog you should totally go read. But I digress.)
I grabbed Soph and scooted (on my BUTT) towards the slide. Once she realized where we were headed, she started to put up a fight. But I was undeterred. And so was she. When we got to the mouth of the slide, she tried to brace herself against the sides with her arms, so I had to give her a strait-jacket bear hug as we zoomed down the red static-electricity-generator-of-fun. When we emerged, I was frustrated and Sophie was tee-icked. I hustled her over to my seat on the bench and attempted to comfort her, but being as I didn’t even have the slightest clue what set her off in the first place, I was less than successful. After three or four minutes of this, I decided to stop torturing my friends and called it a day. I grabbed Joshua, who was surprisingly gracious about the situation, (hey one out of two ain’t bad) and bade my friends a sad farewell.
When we got in the car, I looked at the clock. We’d made it a whole 52 minutes.
Sigh. Well, it was a valiant effort. But the playdate wasn’t much fun for mommy. She’d prefer to have one with her friends and without her kids!
