This playdate is gonna be AWESOMMME!!!!
Dear other mom who I just invited over for a playdate,
I’m super excited to have you over so we can try to ignore our children and actually have a conversation for once, but I wanted to let you know a few things first:
1. Don’t be appalled if my house is a mess when you get here. That just means we’re good enough friends that I don’t have to clean up for you. Or that I’m lazy and pretending we are.
2. If it’s after 9AM, I’ll probably offer you a “drink.” I won’t judge you for saying no thank you as long as you don’t judge me for drinking yours too.
3. If anything comes out of your kid’s orifices, you do NOT have to apologize over and over again. I promise at one time or another every inch of my house has been covered in poop or puke (except for the place you’re sitting of course).
4. Do NOT feel like you have to clean toys up at the end of the playdate. A. You don’t know where I keep shit (scattered all over the floor until the next person is coming over) and B. When you come to my house you get a mini-vacation from cleaning up and when I go to yours I get one. There, now we’re even.
5. If you put on your shoes at the end of the playdate but realize you forgot something in the other room, you DO NOT have to take off your shoes again to go get it. Just walk quickly on your tip-toes so the dirt doesn’t have time to transfer to my floor. That’s what I do.
6. If your kid draws on my walls or rips all the heads off the Barbies or uses my toothbrush as a tush-scratcher, just tell me. Not because I give a rat’s ass. Just so I don’t blame MY OWN kid for it later and ground her or strangle her or something.
7. If your kid comes over to interrupt us, she must say “Mom” at least NINE times before you answer her. This way we can complete at least one sentence in three hours.
8. If your kiddo is acting like a total a-hole, please don’t say you’re sorry. In fact, feel free to say “you’re welcome” because your kid just made me feel better about my own kids.
9. When my kid offers your kid a toy to take home, by all means take it. I promise I will not miss it. And I’m going a step further to say if my kid does not offer your kid a toy, feel free to take one anyway. Preferably a loud annoying one.
10. If I start talking about dinner, bedtime, or my hubby coming home, this is your cue to start packing up to go. Yes, even if YOUR dinner’s not for another two hours. Because A. We might have different schedules and B. It’s a playdate, not a sleepover.
11. If your kid throws a fit when you say it’s time to leave our house, I’ll just take it as a compliment. And then I’ll pin him to the floor while you put his shoes on.
12. Now get the hell over here so the rugrats (translation: the Mommies) can have an awesome kickass playdate!
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This had me laughing so hard that it was obvious to everyone that I wasn’t doing my work! 😛
I call my messy house “lived in” and focus my efforts on cleaning the necessary things – dishes we cook with and eat off of, bathrooms, etc. The kids’ rooms are always going to sort of resemble a tornado zone so as long as they have clean clothes, the stuff they need for school is where it should be, and the room’s not a huge trip hazard, I pick my battles. I figure, does it really, truly matter so much? Just close your door.
These should be the official play date rules that everyone must follow. Anyone caught breaking these rules should be forced to babysit the other parties children ..for free .. overnight. 🙂
Wait the mom actually has to stay while the kids have a play date? When the the heck did that become protocol? So you never get to drop your kids off at their friends and just have 2 hours quiet time? I would have lost my s**t if I didn’t have those occasional breaks when I was a stay home mom. There would been a lot more empty wine bottles at the end of the day. Now granted when it was my turn to host all the kiddos it kind of sucked but was worth the trade off! Mommies would have there get togethers at a bar with no interruptions other than the sleazy guys with the milf complexes trying to hit on us.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane!! You nailed this! Haven’t had a play date like that I about 12 years!
“It’s a play date, not a sleepover.” I have friends who do not understand this or get the hints!!!
I had a friend once apologize profusely because when she was changing her son she accidentally got p**p on the changing blanket. That we use to change our kids on so we don’t get p**p on the rug. It’s literal purpose is to get p**p on it. And she was so embarrassed.
Everytime I receive a new Sideburns email I get excited and I wait til the end of the day to be able to read it because this amount of wittynes should not be interrupted. Reading your blog at nights take me away from my husband’s snores and my neighbor whos car is parked right next to our bedroom and comes home every night at 3 am. The post drowns out all the pain of the day. So, thank you for this. You’re one kick-a*s chick!