i am a playdating whore

This is the first weekend where M's social life has taken precedent over ours. Not that we have much of a social life, but not doing anything at all is still different than keeping three separate engagements for your child.

I don't enter into this easily, the tedium of small talk and constant navigation of toddler social skills. I sit at the park and wonder why they don't have a stand for bloody marys, why no other mothers feel the same way or at least say it out loud. But at the same time I see the joy in M's face, the over exuberance and kicking of legs. The running headlong into her friends and into their homes, new toy discoveries and new beds to jump on. We tackled two of these yesterday and when we finally came home I sat outside with J and noted the weight of this milestone; that until now she's basically done what we've wanted, willing or not. The things we did usually revolved around her but were solo ventures that hadn't yet expanded to others. But this weekend is markedly different, the cracking open the door of a new reality, one where her friends take precedence and it's a juggle of arriving at these mini-events and then home for a nap and then back out again. With new rules and toddlerisms navigated along the way.

We gathered with our newfound neighbors (it's slowly progressing, this community) for a BBQ last night and over beers and babies I talked of this briefly, and the eager looks of our neighbors who still worry of swaddling and nursing and perhaps long for this level of interaction, this show of independence prompted me to implore them to make sure they take it as slow as they can because you can't get back what you grow out of, no matter how bright things look as you move forward because space will take on the air you give it and we are ever expanding still.

So we surrender and commence, this beginning of a third social life with it's constructs and schedules, this way of marking her own presence in this world as she grows into what will be many coming and going of friends, not all ending gracefully but all with significance. She's learning to dance, my M. She's on her way.