Fringes Should Only Be on Blankets

I was fully expecting last weekend to be a weekend that would go down in the annals of horror. H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe – none of them, nor any of their ilk, would be able to describe the insanity and utter darkness that the weekend would hold.

Yes, that’s right. I went to a four-year-old’s birthday party. By myself. (Well, I went as Josie’s date. I’m not THAT creepy.)

When presented with the necessity to go to this party, thoughts of being the only adult on the island of “Lord of the Flies” occurred to me. I haven’t been to too many kid’s parties, other than the ones I’ve thrown for my kids.

“And that’s exactly why you should do it,” Kari said to me.

“But isn’t that a mother’s job? To go to the birthday parties?”

After much agitation on my part, she reminded me that I get upset with the stereotypes, so I should get over myself and take Josie to the party.

I agreed with her about the stereotype, but insisted that my desire to avoid the Lollipop Guild sprung from an honest laziness which had nothing to do with stereotypes.

It may come as a surprise that I didn’t win with that line of argument, either. Plus, she had a nail appointment. So off I went.

The party was for a little boy at Josie’s school named Jack. He lived close, so Josie and I could walk there. On the way, we stopped at almost every flowering plant and tree so Josie could point out the flowers and remark that they were either cool, beautiful, or cool AND beautiful. Walking hand-in-hand with my daughter on a beautiful spring day was clearly going to be the best part of the day. This was something I should do more often.

Jack’s mom is a schoolteacher, so organizing kid’s activities is her forte. So when we got there, there was a craft table to make crowns (which Josie then wore for the rest of the day), followed by an Easter Egg hunt, followed by cake, followed by a sack race. Four-year-olds, though, tend to have a different idea of what constitutes fun, so other than the egg hunt (and its promise of candy) and the cake (with its promise of copious amounts of sugar), running around and screaming provided the bulk of the afternoon’s activities.

I didn’t know if it meant I was lazy or astute by having Josie’s party revolve around sprinklers and balls in the backyard.

We were among an early group of arrivals, and I was surprised to see that most of the kids were brought by their fathers. I felt a little smug: look at me and all these other Modern Dads. I stood there making idle small talk with some of the fathers, something I’m remarkably bad at: usually the conversation ends up orbiting the topic of my daughter’s height – she’ll be 4 in August and is already taller than most of the 4 and some of the 5-year-olds in her class. I took the opportunity to watch her with her classmates.

It was clear, when she was young, that Cathleen was going to have Kari’s personality – very effervescent, very welcoming, easy to be around, very social. Josie, on the other hand, is more like me: reserved when she’s around new people, friendly and social when she warms up to the situation, fun when she’s comfortable.

It turns out, she is a LOT like me. And I don’t necessarily think in a good way.

It might be because she’s tall, so people mistake her for an older kid who has a more developed maturity level, or it might be because little kids are intimidated by her, but she’s a bit of an outlier. She watches what is going on and then participates, usually following, hardly ever leading. This was made most clear when a girl in kindergarten – much older than Josie, really – essentially dragged Josie away from where the kids were playing a game only they knew the rules to, and told her to go find more eggs on the lawn. Josie had an expression that shuffled between confusion and hurt until I went over to her and told her she could do whatever she wanted.

It was very disheartening to see that, to see someone as nice, friendly, and beautiful as my child following in my footsteps in this way. I was always the kind of person who would wait on the edges until the middle was established, and then I’d jump in. But I was the fat kid, so I was an easy target. Josie is not that way at all; I hoped and hoped that my children wouldn’t be like me.

I watched her play with her friends – she clearly is well-liked, as there are a couple of little girls who like to give her hugs. But as they ran around the yard, she ran behind them. She followed the lead of the other kids who drew with sidewalk chalk. She looked like she was having a good time (older mean kid notwithstanding). In the meantime, I stood off and listened to the other parents talk about taking their kids to the zoo once a month, and seeing how familiar several of the parents were with each other when I barely know anyone’s name.

I’d call this ironic if it didn’t make me so sad. Because where I was, that day, was where I didn’t want her to be.

I have never been good with other people. I have some friends, many of whom I adore. But many of them don’t hear from me because solitude has become a greater comfort. Everyone enjoys time to breathe, to be within themselves, to have the noise of the outside world cease even for just a moment. But as I’ve gotten older, solitude became a cloak that was warm and comfortable and far more handy than the warmth of other people. (I mean, I don’t have to call solitude up on the phone. Solitude keeps very quiet.) Listening to the parents who have begun forming their own community makes me wonder if that cloak is actually a cloak of antisocialness, and it makes me wonder what I’m missing, or if I’ve missed it altogether.

But I don’t want Josie to miss it. I just don’t know how to do it. I wonder how two parents, who love their kids beyond measure, but who are as busy as we are, can involve our child in the world around her. Day care and school is not an optional expense for us – we both have to work, so the zoo during the week isn’t possible. More and more, thought, it seems like errands during the week can’t happen either, so our weekends get busy with chores. We spend much of the time together, so at least there’s that. But it’s not the optimal life for Josie. Is it?

Being an outlier is not necessarily the worst thing in the world. Many are remarkably successful. She’s smart and funny (clearly, attributes she got from me), and like I said, she’s friendly when she warms to the crowd. So her exclusion from the crowd is not preordained. Then again, neither was mine, but my parents were not hugely social either. I want her to be part of the world, a participant in it, not merely spinning around its orbit.

I don’t like parties. Josie does. I want her to stay like that.