I find myself in an interesting situation today... A few weeks ago Lily and I made some new friends. I really like this particular mom and Lily really likes her daughter. They play well together and seem to enjoy each others company as much as their moms do. This friend started inviting me to do things with her play group. While I love to stay busy and surround Lily with playmates, these mom's seem to parent different than I do. Most of the time, that doesn't bother me. I don't need everyone to do everything the same way that I do, but I have come to realize there is one core thing that is pretty important to me in parenting: Are you obsessed with your kids? I know all mom's "LOVE" their kids but are you crazy, out of your mind, obbsessed with them? I am. Since Lily was born every second that she is not in reach I miss her... like you'd miss a limb ;) Without fail most nights (even on the toughest of days) Lily will fall asleep and I will look at my sweet husband and say "I miss her..." I know to some of you that might seem crazy or unhealthy even but I don't think it is. And it is this crazy love for her that influences every parenting decision that I make and it of course makes me her biggest advocate. Anyway, one of the kids in this playgroup plays pretty rough and is pretty defiant. I tell Lily "Use your words" to fight him, and she tries but he doesn't listen to mom so why would he listen to a 2 year old. So today she just randomly would scream "No NAME, Mine!" anytime she had something that was hers even though he was nowhere near her and then when we left she told me "No NAME mommy". Basically, she doesn't want to be his friend. I don't blame her, I wouldn't want to either. I told her sometimes by making good choices ourselves other kids will follow her and make good choices, but I don't know how much of that she understands. All that I know is in the last 7 hours she has told me and my husband about 20 times that she doesn't want to be his friend. So now what? I just pretend to become insanely busy and can't ever play with this friend that I like again? It seems like, "oh no big deal just play with her outside of play group". But how to I explain that? It seems like everytime we play together she ends up inviting them. I guess if I am going to be Lily's advocate we may lose our new friends just to avoid the mean kid... sigh. Oh well, mom friends are a dime a dozen right?! NOT.
