I Hope It’s Not Too Late

I seem to have made a typical parental rookie error in the area of friend-choosing with respect to Dimples.

Just about when I started to notice with alarm that she was advancing from the Spend-Time-with-the-Children-of-Mommy’s-Friends phase to the Scare-Your-Mom-with-Your-Newfound-Independence-By-Choosing-Your-Own-Friends-Who-Have-Parents-Mom-Has-Never-Met-Who-Might-Keep-Guns-in-the-House phase, Dimples haphazardly walked into a friendship with a young lady who happens to be a Parent’s Dream.

Well-mannered, calm, and enthusiastic about any activity we suggest, Dimples’ Perfect Friend is a joy to have as a guest.  And Perfect Friend’s parents seem to be as equally happy to have Dimples over to their house.  Or else they have some other reasons yet to be determined for continuously inviting her to spend the night.

It was only after the friendship had been firmly established that I realized my mistake.

“Mom, at Perfect Friend’s house they have an appetizer before dinner.”

“Really?  I didn’t know they took you to Olive Garden last time.”

“No, Mom.  At their house.  The dinner we ate at their house.  It was going to be sushi, but when they found out I didn’t like that, they offered warm bread.”

Uh oh.  Alarm bells start to go off in my head.

“And they serve fresh peaches, not the slimy kind you get out of the can.”

So, allow me to pause here before you People start thinking we serve our child Ramen soup and canned fruit every night for dinner.  We do, actually, serve quite a bit of fresh fruit that’s IN SEASON mixed with some canned fruit sometimes that isn’t.  We don’t serve appetizers in our house because Dimples takes 90 minutes to eat every meal, and we just don’t have time in the day to offer her Spinach Artichoke Dip in addition to the main event, plus veggies, plus fruit, plus dessert.  I have, numerous times, offered to  take her to a sushi restaurant for some taste testing and she looks at me like I have sprouted a second head that just happens to look a lot like Wonderbutt.

They DO Say Owners Start to Look Like Their Pets

Speaking of –

“And they can leave their shoes anywhere because there isn’t a Wonderbutt to chew them up.”

And that’s when I realized, People, that I should have approached this whole friendship thing a completely different way.  I have been way too overprotective.  A couple of sleepovers at a crack house guarded by a pit bull in the middle of a gang war zone never killed anyone.  At least not anyone who I personally know.  And it might make her appreciate our house once again.  Wonderbutt might have made it look like a war zone, but there aren’t any bullet holes in the windows.  Yet.