Back in town
Back from vacation. Had a good time, but could use a vacation from my vacation. For a week, I was on my own with the kids. The program I was at had children’s activities during the day, and evening babysitting, but that still left me with maybe 6 hours a day with the boys.
The main issue is that there were a lot of kids who were a few years older than D, whose parents gave them a lot more freedom than I was willing to give D, so he was testing the limits every few minutes. And whenever I let him do something, N wanted to do it as well, so if D wasn’t arguing with me, N was. And neither of them quite got the concept that I’d want to have a conversation with other adults over meals.
D also desperately wanted to play with the older kids, especially when they broke out pokemon cards and a portable game machine, but mostly they saw him as a "little kid" and weren’t interested. It did help a little when I borrowed Munchkin Fu from someone who was attending, and he was able to demonstrate his ability to play complicated games.
It made me realize that D has a lot more experience playing with younger kids than with older ones. I had D when I was 29, so few of my friends have older children, and mothers groups tend to attract parents of younger children more than school-age kids.
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:50 pm
I feel like yelling, “Amen, sister!” (except, of course, that you’re Jewish) after reading the paragraphs about the vacation. The rest of my family can’t figure out why I’m so reluctant to go on vacation with them… duh, it’s easier to be at home with our regular day-care set-up than to provide 14 hours of entertainment a day for the kids. (We don’t even go to places that have child-oriented programming, although I’m thinking we should aim for one next year.)
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I feel like we struggle with the issue around younger kids/older kids that you describe here, too. It can be pretty frustrating, to have kids that are four years apart, yet feel like either a) you’re unfairly treating them the same way, or b) holding them to different standards. Maddening!