Thank God My Kid is Popular

My kid is one of the most popular kids in gan. Or so it seems from the number of kids who tell their parents that they want to play with her after gan. Certainly its not me they want to play with - I was never popular - with kids or with parents - and Ben was exactly the center of attention either.....

So thats great and I'm not complaining but.....

These kids play together 6,5 days a week, from 7-5. Do they really have to play more after gan? Most of them go to bed at 9 or even 10 at night, leaving their parents with nothing to do with them for so long. I understand the desire not to want to put your kid in front of a tv for hours on end, instead getting them together for play dates.


But not so our family. Eden is asleep (usually) by 8. Shes (usually) in bed by 7:30. That means we bath at 7, start winding down at 6:30 and have supper at 6. That doesnt really leave much time to visit after 5. I can manage a short trip to the park, but a couple hours at a friends house is a bit much...


Also a selfish point. After a whole day of beating traffic twice, doing my best to beat deadlines and lunchlines, the last thing I want to do is sit and entertain multiple 3 year olds. I have dinner to make and laundry to fold. My home is not the neatest, I am not my most patient.

Does Eden really need to go to bed so early? Every once in while we think not, and try to push her bedtime off a bit. But she has trouble waking up, starts getting cranky, and sometimes sick. We go back and forth on that one.

All that said, we do get together with her friends some times and she really enjoys it. She likes to play with their toys, and even sometimes has supper to show off for her friends. So we definately owe it to her self confidence and budding social skills to continue.

It proves how much she is her own person, and not just a mixture of Ben and I. As she often reminds us, "I'm not sweety-pie, I'm Eden!"