Play Dates

The other day my two older kids had a half day of school.  So after they got home we hopped in the car to go pick up Saw at preschool.  They love picking him up and re-visiting the school of their youth.  A couple of months ago we made this same "half day of school Saw pick up" and Sumner said, "Man, it's good to be back."  What a hoot!
Anyway, the big kids asked if we could stay and play on the preschool playground for a few minutes and I obliged.  The playground was all ours.  The kids immediately began to play puppies under their dutiful owner, Bebe.  
A preschool teacher walked by as she went to her car and commented about how nice it must be to have a built in play date every day!  I thought it is nice.  I begin thinking about how great they are at creating their own games.  How nice it is that they always have someone available to play with.  They can even stop playing with one sibling and choose another if it so pleases them.  They have good imaginations and usually come up with things that they can all play.  I smiled as I thought of one of their favorite games to play is Bebe's creation of "Class 4-A".  She is the teacher.  She has hall passes and paper work and roll call and so forth.  They have lessons in ABC's and math and story time.  It's really cute.  They actually learn from her when playing Class 4-A!  Yes, yes it is nice to have a built-in play date...
Except within a few minutes, right on cue, Bebe complained about always having to be the puppy owner and why couldn't Sumner take a turn being the owner and that he didn't want to be the owner and Saw doesn't know how and it wasn't fair and no one is playing puppies anymore and Sumner says Saw keeps following him around and copying him and Sassy won't listen to the rules and Bebe won't play right and on and on and on.  I suggest we go home then...but, oh no, they're having fun they say.  Fun, I think?  So then they play babysitter and kids (which is the same thing as puppies. basically) and they are happy again.  Me too.