The First Date (Playdate, that is)

I am a toddler and as such, will ignore you.

By Downtown Mama Mel


We know our days are numbered with being in complete control of our boys’ social calendar. It won’t be long before our toddler and infant are old enough to have their own friends that we have neither hand-picked nor pre-arranged for them to spend time with. The play date, then, is as much about the parents as it is the kids. And we will milk it for as long as we can.

My husband found a potential play mate for our toddler at one of our local parks this summer. Our boys seemed to get along well in the wading pool and the daddies succeeded in supervising the little ones while also engaging in small talk that actually, gasp, covered topics other than just parenting. Can you imagine?

So some e-mail tag and a few months (err, seasons?) later the Downtown Daddies were able to book a play date for our boys at our house. Jittery from too much coffee and nearly eight months of not enough sleep (our baby was born in May- do the math) my mind was reeling with the play date possibilities. What if our toddlers don’t get along?

But then reality set in. Of course they won’t get along. They’re toddlers. That’s what toddlers do: they switch back and forth from parallel play, which is basically ignoring one another, to snatching toys that are only deemed play-worthy because someone else is holding it at that moment.

And that’s basically what happened. In a ninety minute play date the boys went from ignoring each other while playing outside in the snow to ignoring each other while playing with cars and trains to snatching toys from each other for no apparent reason. There was one tumble on the stairs, two timeouts, three squeals, and a large number of words of encouragement about ‘sharing’ uttered from each of the adults. The parents managed to squeeze in a chat and have a few sips of coffee before it got cold.

All in all a success, don’t you think?


- stay tuned for Mel's tips on how to throw a successful playdate