Just like first dates, playdates can go really wrong really, really fast. Just ask my friend Bad Playdate. This mom is so tenacious — no matter how many bad playdates she has, she just goes back for more. And chronicles them for you. To hilarious effect.
I’m not a fan of playdates, honestly. I was relieved when my oldest hit that age where I could just drop him off instead of hanging around myself making small talk, eating stale goldfish and wondering where the wine was.
But now I have the baby and it’s time to start that whole process all over again.
This time, I’ll be better prepared so, just like with a bad date, I have exit strategies in place before I even plop my big bottom down in that child-sized chair.
My Top 7 Playdate Exit Strategies
1. Warn each new playdate that you have a bad case of Montezuma’s Revenge and if they see you make the emergency face, it means you gotta go, and ya gotta go NOW. Grab your kid with one hand, place the other on your backside and run.
2. Inform the other mom/dad that you’re being stalked by a ex-con, ex-boyfriend who found you on Facebook even after you’d changed towns 4 times to get away from him. At the playground, make eye contact with passing guys until one of them says hi to you, then scream “He found me!” Grab your kid and dash away.
3. One strategy that translates well from the dating world: ask a friend to call you 20 minutes into the playdate. If you’re having fun, ignore the call. If not, answer, say “Oh NO!”, mumble something about your washer overflowing and flooding your entire downstairs then skedaddle.
4. If your chosen playdate venue is fairly crowded, you can employ my favorite getaway from my dating days: Say you (or your kid) needs to go to the potty, then circle around while they’re busy trying to get their kid untangled from the monkey bars, get in your car and leave.
5. Look intently at your kid’s face for a second then scream, “OMG, he’s got chicken pox!” Watch them grab their kids and clear out in 5 seconds flat, along with everyone else in earshot. Sit back and enjoy all the relaxing space you’ve created around you.
6. When the kids aren’t listening, casually mention that you and your hubby spent your last vacation at a swinger’s resort then tell them you hope they’ll come over for drinks in the hot tub Saturday night and they might as well just stay over since they’ll be drinking. You don’t have a guest room but you do have a king-sized bed that in your experience will hold at least 4-5 people.
7. Eat a very large Mexican meal with lots of refried beans and jalapenos before the playdate. Lean in close for some mom gossip and let the burps and farts fly.
As you can surmise by my suggestions, I am a charming playdate guest and very, very in demand around my hometown. So if your goal is not to have to attend playdates, I guarantee that following my methods will cut your invitations down to almost nil. You’re welcome.
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Personally, number 2 is my favorite. I would totally do this.
Ack! I am still “hanging around myself making small talk, eating stale goldfish and wondering where the wine [is]”. THANK YOU for helping take me to the bliss of where you are at!
“Emergency face” …I love this!
Thank goodness for posts like this – I always felt odd for not enjoying all the “my kid does this” and thinly veiled questions about how overprotective I am (an assumption because I had only one child). Good luck to you – you’re a better, stronger woman than I!
The implication that one is a swinger. Nothing clears a room faster. And if it doesn’t clear the room? Mace whoever’s left and run.
Playdates are the worst. Although when you get to the drop off stage, you run into other problems – like now you have to be the mom to other people’s poorly behaved kids. I like #6 exit strategy the best. Only problem is if you happen to say it to a parent who actually IS a swinger. Then you’re in deep shit.
We are slowly graduating from the playdate phase, which I’m grateful for. But the new territory of drop-off playdates can backfire as well. Most of the time, the kids that come over are well-behaved. But it’s those rare ones that work my last nerve that make me wish I could pull a #4. Can’t really do that at my home though. Faking IBS and hiding out in the bathroom seems to be the only solution until their parents retrieve them.