playdate!

Chloe is not a very outgoing child, and so we encourage her to play with the neighborhood children on weekends. In the afternoons the street is cool enough for the children to go running and screaming around, supervised by the various mothers and nannies. While I prefer to rearrange my closet, I sometimes do watcher duty. Most days I do ok. Sometimes I overdo it.

Yesterday I saw her go out the gate. I went to get my slippers, and when I turned around, she had disappeared. I tracked her in a neighbor's house three doors down, after I had gone around the block once. And so to avoid getting a heart attack, I invited the neighbor's kid to my house, so I could watch them both.

Woe to me. Another little girl appeared at my door a few minutes later, whom my daughter welcomed gleefully. This was followed by another, and another, and one who was brought over by her mother. They played with loom bands awhile, then watched Dora the Explorer on DVD. Then they checked out the books, while I picked up about 200 loom bands all over the living room. They briefly went out and found the stash of little toys in the garage, and shortly after, there were little boys as well. By 7:00 pm, I had 16 little kids on my hands, with 6 of them dancing to Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" at full volume. They have eaten all the marshmallows in the pantry, as well as a container of cereal and a pack of wafer biscuits. All my water glasses were now dirty. One little boy asked me whose birthday party it was. Another asked me if he was allowed to jump on the sofa.

The noise was unbelievable. There were toys all over the garage, and cookie crumbs in the carpet, and dirty footprints on my cream-colored sofa. And before somebody started asking where the fried chicken and spaghetti were, I called a halt to the impromptu 'party' at 8:00 pm. The bigger kids were easily driven away; the smaller ones had to be fetched by their mothers. The fetchers all smiled sympathetically, and were all admiration about how I could handle all of the children, while I have suspicions that they were merely glad to have the kids off their hands for a couple of hours.

The children left, but not before asking, "How about tomorrow?"

Thankfully it was Sunday, and all the kids have to go to school the following day. If I had been faced with the prospect of another playdate, I would have locked myself inside the bedroom and combed out all the Barbie dolls' hair in peace instead.