June 30 Photo: A Friend

Since I am a stay-at-home mom and there aren’t many preschoolers in our neighborhood, my son doesn’t have the opportunity to make a lot of friends that he sees regularly. Fortunately, being a very sociable and outgoing kid, he is content to make friends with any other kids he happens to meet, whether it’s at a playground or in a store or out for a walk. But he does have one friend that he sees nearly every week when Daddy runs at Fresh Pond: Katherine.

Katherine is a few months older than Ryan, but was much more shy and less talkative than he when they first met over a year ago. But between getting a little older and coming out of her shell a bit, the two of them are now best buddies. Every Saturday, they run around together before the race starts and again after it ends. They hold hands and run through the grass, they examine trees to look for bugs, they play follow-the-leader across the stone walls, and they greet friendly dogs. But their favorite thing to do together is play with the tools.

I love to listen to them explaining to each other what the various tools are for, or watch them helping each other find a particular tool. This morning when I went over to check on them, Ryan was carefully hoisting Katherine up in the air so she could reach one of the tools that had been looped over the top of the rack and was just out of their reach. It’s always good to have a friend around when you need a little boost.

You've Got a Friend in Me

Last night, my husband and I took both kids out to dinner with us. When we got to the restaurant, a mom with two kids around my son’s age was just going in. The little girl came right over to us and said hello to my baby daughter. My son said hello to her, then the little boy came over and showed off the toy car he had brought with him. The two boys immediately formed a mutual admiration society while the two girls were happily grinning at each other. As soon as we went inside the restaurant, the three mobile kids marched away in a little parade, leaving the waitstaff amused but completely confused as to who was in which party. We eventually got ourselves straightened out and seated at our own tables, but I have no doubt that if my son sees either of those two kids again, he’ll run to them with open arms. In those few moments, he had forged a lifelong friendship – in his mind, anyway.

That’s such a wonderful thing about social kids like my son. He doesn’t care if another kid is wearing designer jeans or a ripped T-shirt. It doesn’t matter to him whether the other kid lives in a gorgeous mansion or a seedy Section 8 apartment. He doesn’t even really care if the kid is into cars or Curious George or counting fire hydrants. If that other kid is willing to run around and chase him, or slide down a slide with him, or just look at ceiling fans with him, they’re friends. He can find some kind of commonality with anyone. “Willing to talk to me” is pretty much his friendship standard. Actually, he’ll take “willing to listen to me” in a pinch.

Wouldn’t it be nice if adult friendships were so easy to make? Instead of standards like, “Are you around my age? Do we have kids the same age? Did we go to college together? Do we share a hobby? Do you have the same political leanings as I do? Do you enjoy the same books and movies that I do?” we’d have standards like, “Are you breathing? Are you standing next to me right now? Do you speak English?” And even that last one would be negotiable. Instead of having to make small talk to find out where someone lives or what they do for a living, we could break right into, “You want to go to the mall with me?” or “How about we both go jump in that puddle?” Personally, I think that being willing to jump in a puddle with someone is a better basis for a friendship than the fact that you happen to have seen the same movie recently.

Anyone want to come jump in puddles with me?