It’s A Play DATE!

So...this one’s a simple little post of an ordinary thing that seems so extraordinary as we begin to emerge from more than a full pandemic year.

Basically, the gist is this:

Our family was quite conservative through the worst of the quarantine and kept to our cocoon for the most part.

We returned the kiddos to in-person school during the second nine weeks of the year (which felt major!) and then returned to one extra-curricular (dance and soccer, respectively) once we had another healthy nine weeks under our belt.

And we’ve pretty much been coasting since then with the status quo, in terms of activities and socialization.

Until a month ago, when we finally launched the loveliest standing Wednesday play date with a family down the street from us, and it’s just been the happiest weekly event for our kiddos.

They have three kiddos (all girls).

We obviously have three kiddos.

And each set of three kiddos are in the same grade (and sometimes same class) at school.

So even though Little Man is the odd male out, they all get along swimmingly and all six of them look forward to Wednesday at our neighborhood playground after school. :)

They run around, they find bugs, they sometimes color (like the butterflies below), and we’ve already decided to keep these Wednesday play dates going through the summer, when we’ll inevitably switch to swim dates.

It’s all. Good. Things.

I’ve often mentioned on this here blog how challenging it can be (at least for me) to connect with other families in order to establish friendships that can thrive outside of school.

The first year we lived here, I bent over backwards really trying to make those connections on behalf of the kiddos, and was thrilled when we made it to the end of the school year and each of my kiddos had just one friend that we’d managed play dates with. It felt like a major victory to manage even that much—and that was after a lot of effort!

And then what happened?? 

The pandemic.

And two out of the three friends moved away, and the third sort of drifted because Little Man’s original preschool closed and it just wasn’t an easy connection to maintain.

It’s just been really tough to socialize and foster existing relationships—or worse still, to create new ones—in a quarantined world.

Luckily, all my kiddos thrive in their school environments and make friends easily both there and at their extra-curriculars. So I know they haven’t been lacking for kiddo interaction.

But I couldn’t be happier for them to be developing stronger friendships with neighbors who have always seemed like excellent temperamental matches for them. And to finally feel like we might be gaining a bit of social momentum.

Oh—and we’ve also developed a really great relationship with Little Man’s best buddy from school. Better still— he also, comes from a family of all sisters, so it will be a natural fit to throw the whole hoard of siblings together this summer to maintain those bonds.

So here’s to the world feeling a bit less daunting now that vaccination rollout is happening and we’re all learning new and better ways to continue on with our lives.

I know we still have a long way to go, worldwide, but every bit of “normalcy” helps.

Stay healthy, stay sane, peeps.

Over and out.