We interrupt this unintended blog silence
to ask a question of the other socially awkward folks out there. There's a mom and dad at swimming lessons with a boy about Nico's age who have been really friendly for the past five weeks, to the point of always seeking us out to say hello and such. We haven't actually talked, other than to find out the names of each other's children, but they seem like they like us. Should I offer them my email address for future playdates at the last class next week? And why does this feel like dating?
Because on the one hand, I suppose if they think it's weird and stalkery for me to give them my email, I probably won't ever see them again. But on the other, what if they sign up for the next session too and it's all awkward? Seriously, though, who wouldn't want a playdate with this dude?
About Me
Name: velocibadgergirl
I'm an unrepentant science nerd. I talk too much, read voraciously, and have mostly given up swearing. I have degrees in geology and creative writing, but my job doesn't have too much to do with either. I'm married to MB, the greatest guy on the whole entire planet. We're doing our best to raise a good dog (adopted April 2008) and a happy kid (born January 2010). It's not always easy, but together we're finding our way.
velocibadgergirl (at) gmail dot com
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Marginalia
— © Billy Collins
Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.
Other comments are more offhand, dismissive —
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" —
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
who wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.
Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.
Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.
And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.
We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.
Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird singing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page —
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.
And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.
Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed
when I found on one page
A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil —
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet —
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. — Frank Lloyd Wright
6 Comments:
Do it! Do it! It sounds like a perfect opportunity, you've had some time around each other, your kids have had time around each other, they seek you out...sounds like the perfect opportunity for playdate friends!
yeah, this whole, meeting parents at swim lessons, karate lessons, girl scouts, school, parks, will get easier.
i've never been more social in my life after having kids.
so, go with it, hand out the email/phone and set up a playdate. it's amazing how easy it becomes and what a breezy experience it is.
there is something about watching your kids while making small talk with other, taller people. it's undoubtably good for them but it's good for us too. us parents I mean.
i know it's helped me a lot. when you hang out with other parents you discover things. like your not the only one that spends half your life on repeat (don't pick your nose, don't touch your winky, etc).
and, you can talk about adult things, like movies and books. really, the interaction does help the soul!
it's a good deal all around.
might as well jump in since you've found a friendly couple. friendly couple with a kid your son's age.
go for it!
:)
Maybe ask them if they'd be interested in having the kids play together, and if they seem open to it, offer up your email then.
Absolutely! I've been approached by other moms in this way when we/our kids have had much less interaction.
Nico's too young to make moves. I guess it's up to you, mom.
We met a lot of families from swim class and a play group we started. Some of them became lifelong friends. Some of those little toddlers are now parents and we've met THEIR babies!
Casually ask if they'd like to have a playdate with the kids and have a picninc in a park.
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