Not for myself. That would be creepy. It's for my son. He needs a friend. I don't know how it is, but somehow I don't know anyone with boys his age. Everyone I meet (even when I randomly make friends at the post office) seems to have four-year-old girls. This is great for my daughter, but is rotten for my son. The poor little guy doesn't have any friends of his own. Much of the time, he's perfectly happy to just play with his sister and her friends. But, a couple of times he's watched her playing with a friend and said, "I want a best fwend too, mommy." It breaks my motherly heart.
As I hang out at the community center's toddler time or play with him at Little Gym, I find myself checking out the boys who look his age, wondering if they could be a potential pal for my little guy. I'm always tempted to ask them to point their Mommy out to me, and to ask them if she's a fun, cool gal (Let's be honest, no toddler friendship can survive if the moms don't get along. No point in fostering a friendship that's doomed because of a mom-off). Sometimes, I'll try to engage these kids and encourage my son to play with them. However, most of the time when he goes up to them and asks them their name, he receives only a blank stare in return. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that I don't fully understand how toddler boys befriend one another.
Last week at Little Gym, he made a friend. They chased each other all over that gym and had a blast. It warmed my heart. Unfortunately, that little boy was just there for a make-up class and who knows if we'll ever see him again. I suppose I should have just asked his mom for her email address but I'm from Seattle and we're somewhat notorious for taking our friendships slowly and not wanting to appear too pushy. She's from South America and probably wouldn't have thought a thing about my "forward" nature. However, the Scandinavian Seattleite in me just couldn't do it. Instead, I just sat there thinking, please be my son's friend, please come back to our class. Now, I'm just back to hoping.
My mom reassures me that I have nothing to worry about, that he's a happy little guy and that he'll make friends eventually. He'll start pre-school next fall and I know we can scrounge him up a friend or two then, but that seems like such a loong time to wait. Has anyone else had this happen? What did you do about it?
