Your first play date

My Love Echo,

You are growing tall and beautiful, your curls dancing on your head, water-falling on your pretty face. Most days you refuse a hair clip or hair tie and want your hair free, like your soul. Once in a while, you let me put a pretty pin, which makes you look like a doll. You are in the Butterflies class now - Parparim in Hebrew. You've been there since you turned three. AS you see, I haven't been writing in your blog. My job at Amazon is all consuming, and I rather spend every available minute with you girls than writing about you. Plus by the time I get to sit down at night, I'm exhausted. But I still cherish every single thing you do or say.

Yesterday you had your very first play date with your friend Alice. You are both in the Parparim class, and often play together. You re too young to know about play dates, but you always see Zoe having friends over for play dates and sleepovers, or her going to her friends' houses. One day you declared that you wanted to have a play date too. "With Alice!" you said. I talked to her mom, and we arranged a play date at our place. It took a couple of weeks to find a date that worked for both families, so again, we encountered that complicated concept of time. You insisted that the play date is today, or tomorrow, and each time, I tried explaining to you that it is in two weeks, in a week, tomorrow... I was grateful when the day came. Another challenge was the location of the play date. Since we came up with the idea, we had to invite Alice to our place. But you wanted to go to her house. Explaining social norms to a 3 year old is no easy undertaking. Until the minute Alice showed up at our door, you insisted we go to her place. I was worried that you might not welcome her. But you did. You were both at disbelief and happy to see each other. I think that's when it downed on you both that you were having a play date. Unlike Zoe's play dates, I couldn't leave the room, though at first I attempted to. You girls decided to play with your stove, cooking supplies, and the picnic basket. You both kept bringing more and more food to the living room for me to eat. There were also occasions where you  two would argue about taking turns using a toy, so it worked better that I joined you. Alice was more willing to share compared to you, but I think this is because the play date was at your place, with your toys, so you had stronger feelings of ownership, and more affected by the idea of sharing.

Overall, the experience was a success. When Alice's mom came to pick her up, she started crying and you didn't want her to go. So we all hung out in the living room for a while longer as you girls played with the spinning red chair, and took turns spinning each other. Us the moms took turns as well, spinning you both at the same time. This was your favorite game.

By the way, Nonna and Nonno are visiting from Italy, and you are not very friendly. "Go away!" you tell Nonna. Or just yell at her if she starts talking to you while you are on a mission to come to me, watch a show, or do anything else. Nonno knows not to get in your way too much. Zoe used to act the same way when grandparents visited when she was your age. That's just how it is. You see them so seldom that you don't know them.

I love you my Echo. I will try to write more often.

Mommy.