Chilling with her best pal, Zoe, in Provincetown this fall.
Suddenly everyone’s talking about how great it will be to get 3-year-old Lula “socialized.” Besides the fact that the word itself sounds like a disease, the concept—Play dates! Birthday parties! Playground buddies!—is one that I am secretly, if only partially, dreading. Right now, with the exception of two actual children, a sweet brother-sister pair, whom she sees on occasion and adores, our daughter’s most inner circle consists entirely of people over 40: her awesome babysitter, a talented professional musician and her cool lawyer girlfriend, a Provincetown gallery owner/painter, our loving massage-therapist friend/neighbor, and her doting uncles George and Trevor. And I have to admit that we love it that way. Her preference of adults over kids is understandable—peers would certainly not let her be adored as the center of attention in the same way—and it allows us to carry on socializing with grownups, while including her, in a way that will most certainly come to an end very soon. So, while we’re definitely looking forward to her starting an alternative-preschool program next month (stay tuned) and getting her more turned on to folks in her age group, we’ll be relishing an adults-only January, too.
We always dreaded how “other kids” might be bad influences upon our little girl treasures; how they would get sick, learn to grab, get hit (or worse, learn to hit), and how socialization would be the bursting of the first bubble of their innocence. It would be the place where our kids would learn about hierarchies, about schedules not tailored to the needs, about the very unfairness of life itself. Oh, such angst about pre-school. I love your protectiveness, dear Bethie.
Thank you, Nissan! Thinking about how your treasures have turned out, despite the world, makes me that much less worried. xoxo
Quinn’s a great place to start as you’ll see next week
And it’s actually truly adorable to see them play with other kids, and you’ll actually have more conversations with adults as a result! But I know where you’re coming from when it comes to those birthday parties, aaargh!
I’m sure you’re right—and cannot wait to see Quinn!