The three of us went to a friend’s twins’ 4th birthday party at their home today. A number of kids were there, ranging in age from about 10 months to 6 years, so Kaia was a bit on the younger side in terms of the kids who were there. The oldest child who came engaged with her a bit in the beginning, as well as a three-year old who came, who mostly stuck to herself. One twin wanted to fully exclude her from “entry” into their castle, and the second twin had to wait until the first twin went to another room to “admit” her. It was a little funny and cute how distinct the two twins’ personalities were: one twin is very aggressive, exclusive, and wants what she wants when she wants it; the other twin seems a bit more thoughtful and wants to be nice to everyone.

While watching Kaia on and off and observing how all the kids interacted with each other, I had a few short conversations with the parents who came (everyone who attended the party had kids and came with their kids). It was mostly a lot of predictable conversations around pregnancy, birth, child-rearing, temper tantrums, and developmental milestones. I sort of annoyed one mom by suggesting to her daughter that if and when the school bully tries to hit her (she was telling me about the mean kid in her class), she should hit back (I mean… I’m all about self defense. Who wants to be seen as the easy target at school?). Another mom kept asking me when I was going to try for a second kid, which I kept trying to change the subject of, yet she still didn’t seem to get the message, and continued to try to steer us back to that. She also apparently has a very different definition of what it means to have family members who live “close by”: she said she had no family who lived close by. But her mom lives a 10-minute drive away, while her sister lives an hour drive away. The other dads who were there had strained conversations with me, and overall, the conversations were fairly insipid and unmemorable. Granted, I’d seen pretty much everyone here multiple times before at this friends’ events and gatherings, but we’ve never really clicked with any one of them. I think we’re at a point now where we’ve realized that we’re not going to be establishing any of these people as our own friends or people we’d want to see outside of these events. I guess in the end, we came for our friend, our own baby to have a semblance of a “play date” like setting, and for the food (which was excellent, with the main highlights being pan roasted Korean-style beef short ribs and homemade chocolate hazelnut macarons). So the overall party was just exactly what I expected it to be, end to end.

When we first toured our current apartment building six years ago, although we did see the children’s play room, we didn’t think much of it since at that time, we didn’t have any kids, nor were we actively trying to conceive. But of course, since getting pregnant with Kaia and now having her, when we have toured other building’s facilities, I’ve definitely scrutinized the play rooms more in terms of how they are set up, what types of toys and structures they have, and how they are decorated. Another thing about most building play rooms (and gyms, for that matter) is that they tend to be in the basement. I’d assume this is to maximize the windowed areas for actual units people will be living in/renting/buying, but still, this is annoying to think of children playing without any natural light in the rooms they are in; it just seems so dreary. It’s my huge gripe with all daycares that are close to where we live: all the main educational areas have zero windows or view to the outside world. The big windows are one reason our nanny said she really likes our play room. She said that our play room is not too big, not too small, but just the right size. And the large windows on one side of it really help.

Our nanny has been great in finding other nannies who are caring for babies of a similar age as Kaia to arrange play dates and encourage socialization. So while they’ve organized activities together at the playground, the park, and the library, they’ve also taken turns “hosting” the other nanny/child at each other’s building’s play rooms. The thing that was hilarious about the most recent child is how big her building’s play room is. They have these huge cushion/foam structures set up for kids of toddler age to walk up, climb up, spin around, and do all the same “gymnastic” like activities that they have toddlers do at NYC Elite Gym or Gymboree… just without the $50/class price tag, or $200+/month charge.

“That building’s play room has all the same stuff as Gymboree, just without the charge!” my nanny exclaimed one day after sharing photos with me of what the kids did together. “It’s like robbery what places like Gymboree charge!”

I kind of smirked in response and said.. well, make sure to keep in contact with this nanny/nanny kid and do a play date at their play room at least once a week so we can maximize the “value” of this relationship. This relationship is essentially a $200/month value now!!