Our First* Play Date

*First play date at our house. The kids have been to many play dates at their friends but we didn’t have any furniture or any of their toys so we put off play dates at us until now.

So the day before yesterday each of the kids invited a friend over.

Neither of the friends speak English. And I barely speak Hebrew. But that’s OK. My kids speak both English and Hebrew. Yes, you read that correctly. My kids are bilingual! I have never been more proud of them. They were thrown in the deep end and they have swum!

Back to the play date. Aaron and his friend were fine. They played games, played hide and seek, ran around, ate ice lollies and generally looked after themselves. Faiths friend was also OK, they painted pictures and coloured in a Frozen colouring book and then they had a disagreement about playing something.Her friend started to cry and I could not console her. I just didn’t have the words in Hebrew and what words I did have went straight out my head. We landed up calling her mom to come fetch her and while we were waiting she cried herself to sleep on the couch.

My heart was breaking. I felt so helpless. Poor child was so upset and I could not comfort her.

This was a motivation for me to keep learning more Hebrew. Especially when it comes to kids. In fact I am more intimidated by the kids than the adults. At least with adults they understand that my Hebrew is minimal and they either speak English to me or help with the Hebrew I don’t know. Kids on the other hand cannot fathom that I don’t speak Hebrew and that I cannot understand them. They think its hysterical when I look at them blankly. My kids roll their eyes and translate for me. I am definitely learning on the fly with these kids.

Bottom line is that I need to learn more Hebrew and we will keep having play dates because that’s an awesome way for me to learn 🙂