play date

If you’re over here for a play date there’s lots to do. I try to feel parents out. Are you hip to our brand of fun? Are you the litigious type? Yep? Then turn that Audi around...

No, not really, but sort of. Maybe I should draw up a waiver.

First off, I don’t really supervise. Let’s be clear on that one for sure. I feed, I fix boo boos, and I locate supplies on an as needed basis. I’m around, mind you, but the posse is self governing unless things go WAY south.

And it is a posse. Just so you know. Your sweet as pie 6 year old girl is going to be running with a large group of smelly boys.

They do things like:

Throw knives.

They usually aim for the knife throwing target.

Is your child comfortable with heights?

Because this girl is no wall-flower.

BB Guns? Check.

Bears? Check.

Mountain Lions? Check.

I’ve recently fed a visiting child a venomous snake.

I don’t own any hand sanitizer. I don’t even like writing the words.

They roam and I encourage it. Go explore!

They go to this place that they call 'flat rock' and I know that they are fine because I can hear their laughter ricocheting off steep cliff walls.

I might not see them for hours, perhaps all day.

Parents will come for pick-up and I’m all “I have no idea where they are.”

"Drive down the road till you see a pile of bikes, and then stop and yell, and they’ll come down.”

At Lew’s last birthday, a mom came to pick up her boy. He was gone. They all were. She got panic-y.

“Where ARE they?”

I knew that they were in an approximate 300 yard radius of the party site (a mountain bike loop in town). I knew that they were playing a game on mountain bikes that involved a fabulous imagination and a lots of awesome boy energy. I knew that they were well-fed and that they would return in the near future.

Her energy made me nervous. I imagine that my energy made her nervous. I don’t want that, because we’re all different and that’s what makes things tick. It was clear that we do things very differently and I’m down with that.

And then you could hear them. Whooping it up, coming down the trail, they might as well have had flames licking their tires, they were so lit up.

Her son threw his bike down and proclaimed for all the world to hear.

“I’VE NEVER HAD SO MUCH FUN IN MY WHOLE LIFE!!!”

Whew. I absolved myself. I hope she did.

Because deep down I know. It’s the wild and free that sings to the soul.

And that requires a little letting go.

I’m just laying it all out there.

You can decide whether or not you still want to be our friend.