When I dropped the girls off for school on Thursday morning, one of the moms asked me if Honey could go to their house for a playdate after school. Oh. Now what do I do??? She asked if the other two would be upset...? I immediately envision the brainscalding scenario of explaining to Lovey & Sweetie that just Honey is going. Upset? Hah! understatement of the year!! Ok, we can handle this. They're each going to have their own friends and I don't expect other parents to take on all my kids just so nobody ever has to cry.
But no one said I couldn't have a counter strategy! I decided to make staying home fun for them so I stole another kid so they could have a playdate of their own. Mind you, the abductee and her mum were MORE than willing to be part of my sneaky scheme. :) Boo to the rescue! and as it turns out, Teena is now enthralled with Twilight so it gave her the opportunity to finish the first book. So it was a win win for everyone.
When it was time to pick up the kids, I got the other mum to leave with Honey without the other 2 noticing the departure. Finally everyone had pretty much gone and they still didn't notice that their sister wasn't there. We told Boo she was coming home with us and my two immediately protested that she didn't have anywhere to sit. I explained the situation and waited for the backlash. Sure enough "how come WE aren't going?" "why just Honey?" etc but Teena & I diverted their attention and shifted to "woohoo, playdate at our house!!!!!! won't that be fun!!!!! Boo's coming over, yaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!" and that seemed to work.
The afternoon went fine and these 3 had fun dressing up and playing all sorts of stuff, singing and dancing around the place. They even did a good job of clean up when I asked them to.
The whole afternoon, Boo kept pretending she was Honey and I felt bad that she thought she was just a replacement! My girls kept telling her she had to have Honey's spot in the car, Honey's dishes, Honey's booster seat at the table etc I took her aside and said "Boo, you do NOT have to be Honey! You can just be YOU and have fun!" She looked at me like I was crazy and said "No! I like it! I'm Honey today!" and off she went. I guess no permanent psychological damage was done :)
We dropped Boo off and went to pick up Honey. The other mum said they'd had a great afternoon, playing pretend imagination stuff. She commented that Honey was a lot like her daughter, acting stuff out with the toys and talking for them. I said that they did that a lot at home with their animals & toys too. I remember doing that with my Barbies all through elementary school, we'd do it for hours. Now I can do it for about 5 minutes before I get the "just shoot me" feeling. I've totally lost that imaginative side! Good thing my ridiculous side compensates well :)
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