This past weekend was the first that the kids had colliding activities. By that I mean that three of them had something going on at the same time — a problem because there are only two of us.
With four kids — we knew this would happen eventually and on Saturday — reality hit hard. Adam had a lacrosse game that overlapped with Lilly’s lacrosse game which overlapped with a birthday party that Jonah had been invited to.
It’s been awhile since I had a child invited to a preschool birthday party, so I hadn’t really thought about the fact that it might not be a great idea to just drop him off. But there was no way that either one of us could stay with him. But poor Jonah is the kid who gets dragged everywhere, so he was more than due to enjoy an activity of his own.
Luckily, Maryland Family ran a story in the April issue about this topic — when it’s ok to leave a child at a party and when you should stay. I pulled it out, reviewed it and promptly called the host mom. I explained our situation, and she was really nice about it. She said there would be plenty of extra hands. I also thought about Jonah and how he would feel about the situation. I realized — as the youngest — he would much rather be left at the party, like a big boy, than have me stay. And frankly — he probably behaved much better that way.