On Exhaustion, Horse Play and Friendship

I'm about 1 month behind in everything in life . . . phone calls, laundry, blog posts . . . this was originally written February 21, 2012.

The Salad were up and raring to go at 6:30 on Mardi Gras. By 8:18 AM, we had eaten breakfast, gotten dressed, made a king cake, had 1 time out, played a game of Zingo!, crafted green, purple and gold Mardi Gras bead bracelets. I felt like we had lived a whole day in just under 2 hours. I allowed myself a moment to imagine crawling back into bed, then made myself a second cup of coffee and we headed out the door - king cake in hand - to a scooter party with playgroup. 48 degrees in February calls for as much outdoor time as possible.

The kids had a good time. Though there is often some rough housing when a group of 6 boys and 6 girls get together. It's always hard to know at what point to step in to stop the wrastling. Often, in an effort to let the kids be kids, or to let them learn how to work it out among themselves, we let it go until someone gets hurt. My Grammy had an Italian saying she would shout at my sister and I if we were fighting that meant "Stop it before somebody cries!" Perhaps we should adopt it as playgroup's motto.

M has a very sweet friendship with Peter. They seem to join forces against the other boys, in an effort to protect themselves and each other. Unfortunately today, Peter's lip took the brunt of another friend head and M sat by his side until Peter smiled again. During a game of "duck, duck, goose," M said "Pick me, Peter. We're best friends!" And then they hugged and kissed just before we left.

Brofriends.