Everyone knows that it is not my life's ambition to be surrounded by children.  If it was I would have done one or more of the following:

a) been pregnant many times
b) become a school teacher
c) run a daycare center
d) started a cult

Instead I had the one kid and embarked on a life in which I get to experience the great things about family life, completed the over-rated "circle of life", and still hold onto a little shred of my identity outside of my role as "mom".  To my way of thinking, and for my own needs, this was a good way to go. 

One of the many advantages that only children have (that children with siblings don't have) is their parents undivided attention.  I'm not saying one way is better than the other, just that there are advantages either way you choose, and yes, this is leading somewhere quite specific.  I estimate that Max has had more personal attention from his parents than the majority of his friends have had from their parents.  It isn't a question of other parents not wanting to give all their attention to one kid- wait, actually it is...I mean obviously when people have more than one kid it's because they want to spread their love around.  What I'm trying to say is that it's just a different style of parenting.  I'm not going to enumerate the advantages of having more than one kid at this time because almost everyone is already bent to think that most of the advantages are on the side of larger families.

As Max has developed friendships I have been happy to have his friends hang out at our house.  Most of the time I think of his friends as a great benefit to our family life.  If you have an only child it's important to encourage strong friendships between them and other children so that they have peer support and lively age-appropriate playtime. 

What I never intended to do was to collect other people's children like little sheep glued to my side.  What started out as a tendency for Max to prefer to play on his own turf (agoraphobic tendencies and OCD are implicated:  "his house always smells funny" and "there are too many kids there" or "his yard is too small" and "I like it best at home" and "I'm only comfortable when I'm at home" and whatever other reasons he frequently comes up with) and my general wish for Max to be happy and comfortable  combined with the lack of mutual invitations extended to Max to come to his friends' houses has led to a situation that is becoming increasingly unacceptable to me.

I am practically running a daycare.

Max has five steady friends.  What's really strange to me is that the only one he enjoys a reciprocal playing relationship with is the one who doesn't live in town here.  Our very close friends in Dundee invite Max over and we have their kid over pretty equally and it feels really good.  More than that, these friends send some food with their kid to make sure he eats what he wants and while I don't expect it, compared to my experience with the other kids who come over, I've come to value that little caring detail.

Of the other four friends there are two who have slept over at our house between 50 and 100 times over the past two years respectively.  That doesn't include all the non-sleep over afternoons we've had them here.  Of those two very close friends of his only one of them has invited him to spend the night-exactly two times.  It must be admitted that Max refused because after the one time he slept over at that kid's house he decided it was much too chaotic and uncomfortable for him there.  The other friend's parent has invited Max to play at their house about 5 or 6 times with not one invitation to sleep over.

Why do I care?  At first I didn't.  Like I said, it's a boon to have Max's friends come over.  When Max doesn't have friends over he expects us to be his full time play-mates.  There is no sibling to force him to go play with.  There is us and there is him.  We like our cozy little life together but a kid needs age appropriate friends to play with (this becomes especially true when they are long past the toddler age) and I am not a little boy, I am my son's mother.  The time for playing Legos with him is done. 

Over time however I have begun to mind.  I have begun to mind a lot.  First of all, as we have become more and more strapped for cash it has become an issue that these kids come over and raid our snack pantry.  I have practically had to put a big padlock on the cabinets to prevent them from just coming in and taking what they want.  It's expensive feeding a picky eater.  In essence I have also provided snacks and meals to two other children who aren't mine an average of two times a week.  Maybe it doesn't seem like much and if Max was being invited to go to their houses to play and share their snacks I wouldn't think twice about it.

But he's not.  He's not being invited to their houses.

One boy (who isn't one of the close friends of Max's I was just mentioning) has been trying to come over as often as possible for play-dates now and never invites Max over to his house.  He doesn't even get along with Max that well and he practically begs me to let him sleep over. 

And I want to shout out "ENOUGH!"

If you are a parent who is sending your children to someone else's house to play and you don't at least offer equal invitations to that kid to come play at your house then you are taking advantage of the other parent.  It's truly in poor form.  It is more like you are using your child's friends as a daycare opportunity.

And why are these kids clamoring to spend the night here all the time?  Why are they practically begging to be here?  I am a dragon.  I am hardly a child friendly sweet playful fun parent.  When 9pm rolls around and Max and whatever friend of his who's here aren't getting quiet in his room in preparation for sleep...I get MEAN.  Still, they want to come back.  They talk to me too.  These kids.  Eagerly.  Like they're hungry for adult attention.

I try to be kind and patient and understanding and all that.  But the truth is, when these kids are here, I don't want to be like a second parent to them.  I'm tired.  The parents of these kids are getting breaks from their kids that I'm not getting.  I need breaks too!

I don't get breaks from parenting like parents with multiple kids do.  My kid never runs off to squabble with siblings.  It's me and Philip and Max all the time.  So now, instead of finding that as Max develops friendships I get some breaks as he goes to other people's houses to play, I have become the dumping ground for three other children.

Reciprocity is the cornerstone of good manners, of community, of good will.

I want some reciprocity. 

I think it sucks that if I want it I'm going to have to talk to these other parents and explain that I don't run a daycare.  That I love having their kids over from time to time but I want them to have mine over just as often, or at least offer just as often as I do.  I want them to feed my kid and referee rough-housing and to be responsible for my kid for a few hours every week.  Cause otherwise I'm going to have to start charging them for the time I spend smoothing play-time out, keeping an eye on everything, negotiating toys and activities, and monitoring snack eating.

The fifth friend of Max's I mentioned is a new friend.  Or rather an "old" school friend that Max has been trying to get his shy phone-phobic mother to arrange a play date with for months.  I finally achieved contact with this kid's parents and I invited the kid over.  What I have learned not to expect actually happened- this kid's parents extended an invitation to share the day of play between our house and theirs.  It was refreshing and wonderful.  Max went off for a couple of hours to this friend's house and played and romped with some of their neighborhood kids...got out of our house into a new environment and had a great time.

It can take me a long time to get mad about something (no one I work with will believe this) and usually by the time I do I've already let myself get taken advantage of.  What a mess.

So all you parents out there- think about this:  Are you putting out for your kid's friends too?


Note:  I realize that there's a serious potential to piss people I know off here, but if any of the parents I'm talking about read this and feel like I should have said something before, I can only defend myself by admitting that asking other parents to reciprocate play-dates (or to at least offer them), interferes with my pride a little because this is something I don't feel I should have to ask for.  The ones who aren't reciprocal with offers to have Max over aren't close friends of mine, I don't know them well, and being a person with social phobias and great difficulty dealing well with confrontation are all factors that make it unlikely that I will bring this issue up in person.  Writing is one of the few ways I know how to say what I mean without fear and as everyone who reads my blog knows I manage to get myself in plenty of trouble with my writing.

The sap is running.  It's not spring yet.  This is midwinter for most of us (except for Simply Belinda and a very few others who visit here) but it's in the deep cold that many trees and some plants begin to stir under the snow, rain, sleet, grey, or whatever other weather you are most likely complaining about right now.*  In my area the most notable trees to show signs of life when the threat of a cold snap is still a real possibility are the lilacs.  Right now their leaves are budding on the stems.

Roses, being rather reckless plants, are also budding out right now but it isn't remotely safe for them to shoot tender growth out this far before the spring.  Yet I find their wild desire to get down with the business of growing charming, like your favorite train-wreck aunt who drinks cocktails all day and is the life of the party even though you all know she's going to crash and burn because no liver can take that much abuse...and you love her just the way she is because we all love to see people live without rules.  This one is an antique rose that bounced right back after being transplanted in the brutal heat of summer.

If anyone ever tells you roses are finicky delicate plants they are lying to you.  They are only difficult to grow if you are trying to maintain show quality foliage with no hint of powdery mildew or black spot.  Good soil management and feeding schedules will keep those two famous rose problems in check.  Roses want to live.  More than any other plant I've ever grown I've found roses more willing and able to rise from their own ashes again and again.  (I know that they are much more difficult to grow in extreme climates and people living in those climates are the only ones who have a right to call roses "difficult".)

It's still pretty cold out there but there are ladybugs everywhere!  I love them.  Not because they're cute.  Their larvae are vicious hungry aphid eaters.  They don't look cute at all.  They look like tiny alligators.  I love these guys for the hard work they do in my garden.