Building friends and play dates

While living in New York, what I’ve always wanted was a friend who lived walking distance who I can just say, “Hey, are you free? Want to grab coffee/take a walk in the park?” During this whole time I’ve lived in New York, I’ve only ever had one real friend who lived within walking distance, and frankly, we never had that type of relationship with each other. We probably saw each other at the same frequency we’d see each other if we didn’t live close by.

When we lived in this building, and especially after Kaia was born, I thought it would be amazing if I could make other mom or dad friends in the building. This… was a desire, but it barely came into fruition. In my mind, this seemed like an ideal setup: our kids could play together and entertain themselves while we’d have adult conversation or meals. I attempted a friendship with at least three different parents in the building. One was a dad, who has since moved out, but he was the most reciprocal. He actually did reach out to do play dates, but unfortunately his son (two months older than Kaia) and Kaia did NOT get along (his son wanted to throw toys at and hit Kaia, and Kaia did not like him). The second was a mom who had a son about four months younger than Kaia. I tried reaching out a few times to set up play dates, and she always said she was busy, so we never actually did an official play date. She never reached out unless she had childcare or kid product questions (fun). The third is someone I met at the gym; we’re both called “gym rats” by our building trainer because we’re always at the gym every weekday. We were quite friendly. She gave a baby gift when Kaia was born and gave me endless suggestions for baby products and stores because she had friends having babies (and she was doing IVF, which she later revealed). We invited her to our Thanksgiving meal just a couple weeks before Kaia was born. I was invited to both her baby showers and attended the first one. But when I’ve tried to schedule play dates with our kids, it’s never worked. Again, she also has never reached out to arrange any date. I figured that I should just let the idea go and came to the conclusion I was just never going to make nearby parent friends.

Then earlier this year, I took Kaia to the pool on our roof, and we happened to swim with a mom who had a son about five months younger than Kaia. We made some small talk, and since she didn’t have her phone, she asked me to leave my name and number with the lifeguard, and she’d contact me for a future play date. I didn’t think anything of it because of my previous experiences attempting to meet up with other neighbors for play dates. But then about three days later, she sent me a message on Whatspp and asked to arrange a play date in the coming weeks. Since then, we’ve had three play dates — one at the play room/library, one at the pool, and the most recent one was today, when we started at the pool; after, I invited them over to our place for snacks (I made whole grain chocolate banana mini muffins for the kids, plus I had Peruvian dark chocolate to share, along with some fruit and roasted sweet potatoes for the kids). The kids played with Kaia’s toys; Kaia was really sweet and actually laid out a lot of her favorite toys and arranged them “just so” so that Hugo could decide which toys he wanted to play with alongside her. They fought over her Peppa Pig bus and ice cream truck. They got excited and started squealing when we took some balloons out for blowing up. And they eventually started bonding over Kaia’s book collection, when they spent a good 40 minutes just reading books together, sharing stories, and taking turns with books over and over. While they played, we chatted about work, travel, different countries and cultures, and local restaurants and play areas.

Our neighbor’s work and travel schedule is a bit hectic for the next couple months, so our next play date isn’t until the beginning of October; she wanted to confirm while we were together and put it in her calendar so she didn’t forget, which I really appreciate. But it feels really good to finally have a friend in the building who has a child similar in age to Kaia who I can enjoy spending time with. It took a while, but it has finally happened! I’ve made a real neighbor friend (with a child!).

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