5 Reasons to pass on the Playdate

You either love ‘em or you hate ‘em.

I would rather go to the dentist than have additional children over to my house.

Here are the 5 reasons that I hate playdates:

1. My house is a constant mess, and not prepared to host wild hyenas, let alone schoolchildren.

I think I just compared apples to apples there, didn’t I?  The kids always seem to ask to have someone over on the days that I have been the busiest and the house is the messiest.  Last summer the youngest asked to have someone over exactly 20 minutes after we got home from camping for a week, and the front hall was completely filled with gear.  She looked me in the eye with a straight face and everything.  I said no because I didn’t think that her friend could get her rock climbing certification in time to climb over Mount Pile ‘O Crap.

2. Defying the laws of physics, the house actually gets messier.

I didn’t think it was possible.  But it is.  I think that kids get so excited about having different toys to play with, that they feel like they have to play with all of the toys.  I liken the process to that of one of those contests in which you have one minute to fill your shopping cart with free groceries.  The contestant runs around throwing high-dollar/low-volume items into their cart, convinced that they have scooped up the Hope Diamond.  When the minute is up, the reality of the situation is a trashed store, and a shopping cart full of tuna fish.  In this example,  my house is simultaneously both the trashed store and the shopping cart full of stinky fish.

3.  I’m an only child.

I don’t like noise, and I don’t like to share.  Despite the fact that my eldest child has 2 younger siblings, she is of the belief that she is also an only child.  She gets so wound up by the end of her sister’s playdates that we both end up rocking in the corner.

4. Snacktime.  Also known as Try Not to Kill the Kid.

I’m a worst-case-scenario kind of person.  I don’t argue about whether the glass is half-full or half-empty.  I fret about whether the glass is clean enough, or if it is going to kill me.

The girls have a lot of friends with anaphylactic food allergies, and I get nervous feeding them anything, even though I know it is safe.   It’s really just an extension of my fear of giving dinner guests food poisoning.  It’s never happened, but it’s always there in my mind along with the 11 million other pieces of anxiety.

5. The awkward pickup.

Let me paint a picture for you here.  Dinner is burning on the stove.  The pint-sized visitor is tearing around stalling for as long as is humanly possible, while I make small talk with the other parent.  If I know the parents well, then I actually quite enjoy this social time.  If I don’t know them well, then as painful as the chitchat may be for both of us, I am determined to keep them talking.  All in a grand effort to keep their eyes from wandering to my broken light fixture, and the garbage bag sitting in the hall that may be clothes to donate, or may actually be garbage.  Depends on the week.  Then there are the 9 warnings that I awkwardly shout out the door, as they are leaving, about the structural dangers of our property.  Awkward, but has to be done.

Because nothing puts a damper on a playdate like legal action.