Social Calendar and Busy Weekend

Last weekend we had plenty of hockey fun but a busy social calendar, as well. We had a Dartmouth women’s hockey game, followed by a game for A in the AM, then a birthday party, then a game for N in the evening. Hockey precluded our participation in the community breakfast, the local winter carnival/chili cookoff, and the Tiki Torch Trek. Then again, what’s more worthy of our time than hockey? Not much.

On the social front, one of the hopes we had in enrolling N in hockey was to help him to develop his own social circles outside of his sister’s sphere of influence. A is a very outgoing person who makes friends wherever she goes, whereas N tends to be a bit more reserved. Once he warms up to a group, he can be the life of the party, but it’s that initial breaking of the ice that is more of a challenge. Consequently, many of his friends tend to be A’s friends, because she makes the connections and he benefits from it.

This is fine up to a point, because as they get older, the difference between boys and girls becomes more apparent, and eventually they’re just not going to want to hang all together. It’s sort happening already, and not only does A want some space to do girl stuff, but N doesn’t necessarily want to hang out in an exclusively female environment. At least not yet.

Hockey seemed like a good opportunity to make that break, and so far, so good. N is surrounded by boys his age and they all share a common bond of hockey. Best of all, it’s his own thing, allowing A to travel in her own circles unencumbered and even freeing up mom and dad from being too overbearing... sort of. Let’s face it, in the era of modern parenting, no parent is completely absolved from involvement in their kid’s social lives. It just comes with the territory.

Either way, we’ve had a few social gigs through hockey, and it’s been fun for N. We did a bowling playdate that A tagged along with, even though there was some pre-existing social circles that they had to break into, but I can’t worry too much about that, these guys have known each other for years. Then just this weekend we were invited to a birthday party of one of N’s teammates. Birthdays seem like the gold standard of social acceptance, though it can work against you when you’re on the outside looking in. This was the first opportunity for N to hang with buddies without his sister there. I don’t think A minded because it was going to be a bunch of boys getting crazy. Then again, A has fun doing that, as well.

We drove out to Canaan to this place I’d never heard of called the Competition Complex. It’s basically this huge warehouse where kids can get crazy, not unlike Chuck E Cheese without the pizza, though there was plenty of fried food that you could order. N had a blast in this big caged room filled with rubber balls that the kids could throw at each other as hard as they could. They spent about an hour in there, and it was a good exercise for me to lighten up and let kids be kids. There was some pretty big kids in there (i.e., teenagers), however, so there was some cause for concern.

The place had mini-golf, a batting cage, video games, and playground. Not my kind of place, but I’m not a kid, I’m a stuffy, overbearing parent. The most important thing was the kids had a blast, and N got to hang with buddies and bond. Interestingly enough, I ran into several friends over there, all attending assorted birthday parties of their own. It’s the thing to do over there.

After the party, it was afternoon, so we headed home, got a quick bite to eat, then headed off to our second hockey game. Is it ever enough?

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to identicaltriplets for the pic.