Play dates are not in their vocabulary so it’s been difficult to find friends for David to play with outside of school. Just last week, one of David's schoolmates' moms finally acquiesced to me picking up her son for the afternoon to play with David. I literally had to beg her!
I’m used to my Atlanta mommy friends and I having play dates and exchanging babysitting favors, but that is not done here. Most folks still live close to family so they ask their kin to watch the kids. Since we don’t have family here, we’ve tried to get friends and neighbors to watch David, but they act like that’s a weird request. Fortunately, we’ve found a local family in the same boat as us (no family nearby) so we take turns on a weekly basis with babysitting.
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| David with his best friend, Matti. |
Our neighbors have also come around and we’ve watched their baby girl a few times and David’s gone across the street to play with her while we have small group.
Since it’s not the cultural norm to leave your child with someone who is not family, newcomers tend to be leary of leaving their children with us in the nursery at church. They’ll ask their nanny to stay with them the whole hour! That may happen just the first Sunday or for a couple of Sundays until the parents see that we are providing a safe environment for babies and kids to have fun and learn about God.
Birthday parties are a big deal. As stated in one of my earliest blog entries, Wendy’s has a party room and an employee hired specifically for party planning! One of David’s classmates just turned three so David and all his friends were invited to Lauty’s party. The package included games, face painting (David wanted to be Batman), cake, a piñata, a kid’s meal for each boy and girl, and a cup of coffee and an apple pie for all of the parents!
On the children’s cable networks, commercial after commercial promotes healthy toddlers by giving them formula…until they are three years old! These preschoolers are already eating regular food, but their diet is supplemented with formula. I transitioned David from formula to cow’s milk at 12 months so this cultural difference shocks me.
As mentioned before, I deeply miss the plethora of children’s activities (many free) that are easily accessible online in the States. Part of it is that I am not aware of all of the events offered in the area, but the majority of the problem is that there is not a central location where all local activities are registered. Even if there was, there is not much going on for preschoolers. David is on vacation for two weeks, but we don’t have much to do. The good thing is that he’s fine watching “Toy Story 2” every single day (some days more than once). Monday, he goes back to school. Yea!
