Bowling With Friends

One of the things I love the most about our daycare is the nice group of kids she has there.  Laura grew up having two good buds there with her; Ayden, who is one year older, and Christopher, "CJ," who will head off to kindergarten with Laura next year. (But not at the same school...lots of sadness when they figured this out.)  They have always played together nicely and miss each other when they are away from daycare in the summer.  Laura has really missed CJ this year on the days when one or the other is at preschool, and is so happy come the end of the week when they can be at daycare together.

Every once in a while, we try to plan some get togethers for the kids.  Laura had her first "official" playdate at our house on Dec. 31 when Christopher came over to play for the morning which was major excitement. She was worried that he might not like her room, or that he wouldn't want to play with her things.  You should have seen her beam when he walked in her room and immediately said, "Wow!  Laura, your room is so cool!"  They played cash register, ran around in the basement, made sticker art, ate a snack, and played her new Disney Hedbanz game.  She did struggle a bit with the "Your guest chooses what to play" rule but it went pretty well.  These two do love to play together but have such a history that they will on occasion bicker like an old married couple which is pretty funny.

This past Sunday, all three of them reunited to go bowling, which was Laura's first experience at the bowling alley.  Like she does with all new events, she was initially really apprehensive about the whole thing and didn't want to go.  Somehow I got her on board and of course she had a blast, although she remained pretty disdainful of the bowling shoes. "Can't I just wear my socks?"  The kids bowled with bumpers and a ramp.  In the first game the scores were solidly in the 60s, but by the second, Laura was the winner with an 82.  Note to self, do not tell preschoolers the "winner" in a moment of absentmindedness - Laura could not keep quiet about that and it resulted in some rather put-out boys.  Have to remember the Catholic school gym teacher telling the kids the score was "Fun to fun!"  Even my first graders didn't buy that.  Anyway, it was fun just to see them having a good time together, cheering for each other and giving fives.  Most of the time all three would walk up to the lane regardless of who was bowling, and the other two would adjust the ramp, give pointers, etc.  I love this friendship and hope we can keep the connection even after our kids all leave daycare and are in school.