Sunday, September 23, 2007

I Won't Be That Kind of Mom

I won't be that kind of mom.

The one who, in a sing-songy voice says, "Oh YES!! (claps hands together) Let's do a PLAYdate sometime! LET me GET your NUMber!!"

LittleBird has decided she really likes one of the little girls at school. A lot. Apparently they spend a lot of time together. Both the mom and grandfather have stopped me on numerous occasions to tell me how cute they are together. How the other little girl runs to my daughter to give her hugs in the morning.

Thursday night, without any prompting, LittleBird told me that Axxxx was her "best friend" and just giggled and giggled and was so happy. We have never talked to her about best friends before, so this was a complete surprise. It was adorable to see how excited she was to tell us this.

So, Friday I ran into the grandfather at pickup time, and told him. I told him that we should have the girls play together on the weekend sometime. He thought that was a great idea because apparently his granddaughter has been asking for LittleBird to come over to her house, or asking to come to ours. Turns out we nearly live across the street from each other. I got their phone number, and we drove home.

Saturday night rolls around and I am thinking FUCK. I told him we need to do a play date--but come to think of it we have company coming in next weekend, and the weekend after that we are out of town. I hate hate hate it when people tell me Let's get the kids together and then never call. So I called their house and we set up a playdate for today at 3 o'clock.

It is not an ideal day or time to do this, but I feel it is important. We are now an hour away from when he is supposed to bring her over--there is laundry all over the floor, LittleBird is singing in her room instead of napping, and Hubbie is vacuuming upstairs with LittleMan on his hip so that the grandfather does not think that we have twenty cats instead of two.

I guarantee my daughter will finally fall asleep fifteen minutes before they show up. Sigh.

I still wouldn't have done it differently. LittleBird will have a great time, and I will not be one of those moms. I said let's do it. I got the phone number. I followed through. Totally self-serving, I know. But if I am going to talk the talk, I need to walk the walk. It is not always convenient, but it is important.

And, hey. It got my hubbie to vacuum the upstairs. This could be a win-win situation yet.

2 comments:

Patois42 said...

Ah, yes, the brilliant ploy of acting as if people are coming over, even if the people is a little girl. Good one!

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you followed through. I have a "mom" who always pulls the "lets get together" thing and never follows through.

It would bother me much less - in fact not at all - if she just wouldn't bring it up. I think she is doing it "just to be nice", but it really isn't nice, nor is it necessary.

Glad you're not one of THEM!!!!