Asking for a date ... for the kids

Most of the parents of my kids' friends are great. You also hate to judge the kid based on the parents. If people had judged me based on my father, I never would have had a single friend growing up.

 

He started too late. You need to be going to that by the second round at the latest. Once you get your shortstop and are reasonably sure you can get some outs now and then, it's all about the postgame parties.

 

A really fun time is when your kid's transitioning from one age band to another. My youngest, the 13-year-old, has recently been getting these invitations to go to, say, the mall, or Six Flags (across town), for the afternoon.

"How will you get there?" her mom and I ask.
"Oh, I can ride with XXXX."
"Will it be XXXX's mother or father driving?"
"I don't know."
"Well, how 'bout you find out."

Ten minutes and six thousand text messages later ...

"Her older brother's going to drive."

Uhhhhhh, no.

 

You can draft them on length and escapability, but it's best when you measure their upside.

 

Your wife was right. If the hostess is going around making Long Island Ice Teas, she is not going to be able to properly supervise a party for 8-year-olds. After all, those have a lot of ingredients an take a long time to make, leaving less time for ensuring no one is cheating in strip poker.

 

We have made friends with two sets of parents through my son's daycare. The first ones were at a daycare event and we were introduced by the teacher since our son and their daughter were close in age by a few weeks. We now meet up for days at the zoo, park and at their house about 1-2 times a month.
The others we met by being on the same "town" facebook forum page. She saw my photo on a comment and recognized my son as a kid her son likes in the class and so we have met up a few times as well.
It's nice since we are not from the area and it's helping us have more people to know than just our co-workers.

 

Find out where the parents are on the go/no god belief continuum.
Allowing your pre-school-age child to associate with other pre-school-age children whose parents believe in god could result in a decreased interest in math and science down the road.