Old friends

Last Saturday, we wnt to Yorktown to visit a friend of Jack's whose family had moved up there last summer. We were friendly with the parents, too, but it was mostly to give him a chance to see an old friend. We had done something slightly similar once before, inviting a preschool friend to a party, and that didn't go overly well...a year apart had been like forever for that friendship. So we kind of figured we would stay a couple of hours, catch up and then head home.

Instead, Jack and Brian kind of picked  up where they left off. They spent the next several hours playing with toys, sticks, video games, whatever, and then we headed to a nearby state park and we all fished, then they used a couple of metal detectors to find a bottle cap and a piece of colored glass on the beach. And then it was getting late, so we stayed for dinner, then broke out what appeared to be a limitless supply of sparklers, fired them up, and watched the kids run around waving them in the dark. While a seeming herd (flock? Gaggle?) of gray tree frogs serenaded us with their songs, and we were reminded that you don't have to drive too far out of the suburbs, which I feel like we live in even if we don't, to be in the country (which it felt like we were in even if we weren't).

Driving home, with both kids sleeping (Kate spent the day playing happily with the older brother, and fishing, and having a love-hate relationship with the sparklers), I felt better about the whole connecting with old friends thing,  not only for Jack, but for us. We went up mostly thinking it was good for Jack to see someone outside his regular group of friends, but it was a lot of fun for us, too. You get stuck in routines of doing the same things with the same people and forget about all the other things there are to do (fishing! Ordering from a different Italian restaurant!) with somebody you don't see all the time.

So anyway. Jack had fun and we had fun, and it's nice when that happens not just when you drag your kid somewhere, but when you go there because of them. The next day I got an email from the Mom saying her son "was so happy -- he thinks Jack's his good luck charm," partly because he caught three fish after not catching any before. So that was pretty nice, and we'll go back there. Maybe next time Jack will catch a fish, too.

Although I think finding the bottlecap and colored glass made up for it.