Kids are good for social networking
It’s been difficult finding time to blog. I can’t keep up with the pace of others but I do agree with Bruce Reyes-Chow on the personal and communal virtues of blogging. Since we’ve been back in Seattle I’ve had to catch up with work (yes, academics do have work over the summer) and get to some projects around the home that we put off.
Summer allows me more time to spend with the kids. One of the highlights of the summer was taking Micah to a waterpark in Sac. I love waterslides. Micah now meets the 42″ height requirement for many of the big slides and so we were able to venture beyond the wave pool and the kiddie slides. The kid has no fear and will go on any ride. He doesn’t know how to swim yet relishes going into the deep end. While at my in-laws in LA the kids and I slept in the same room so that pregnant mommy could have a room to herself and get undisturbed sleep. Although I had a bed and the kids slept on a mat on the floor, every night I would sleep with them so that Hannah would cuddle up next to me. Normally we’re very strict about the kids sleeping in their own beds but vacation allows me to bend the rules.
I’ve noticed that a lot of single people have dogs to meet people. They congregate at a popular pub or cafe, stroll a particular ave or park. Dogs are a great conversation starter. So are kids (yes, they are much more than that too!). When we first moved to Sac we hardly knew anyone. In all our years there we didn’t develop strong friendships at church due to the fact that I served at Korean churches with mostly 1st generation folks or due to distance.
A friend of mine in LA mentioned to me that it’s a good thing he hasn’t made close friends at church. This has allowed him to get to know his neighbors. And he commented that these friendships were genuine because they weren’t getting together just because they were supposed to or b/c they were part of the same small group.
That’s essentially what happened to us when we lived in Sac. All my adult life my closest friends have been Asian Christians. I don’t think I intended to exclude others, but they got crowded out. If my schedule consisted of getting together with them on the weekends, for vacations, church functions, etc. I essentially excluded any possibility of friendship with others unless they joined in on my activities.
Through a local preschool Sarah met a number of moms with boys the same age as Micah and girls roughly the same age as Hannah. At first they got together for what else? Playdates. These playdates turned into birthday parties, dinners, vacations together. What was great was the diversity of the group – mostly but not all Caucasian. One 7th Day Adventist, one Catholic, Mormon, atheist, evangelical. Sarah told me that the moms talked about everything – motherhood, their families, their struggles, politics, religion. So too us dads would talk about work, parenting, politics, hobbies, religion.
Since we’ve moved to Seattle we’ve found here what we desperately longed for in Sacramento – a vibrant, missional, church community at Quest. Yet we miss our neighborhood friends. Thankfully they weren’t merely a phase in our life – people merely to fill a temporary loneliness void. Since we’ve moved we had several visits from them (come to think of it not a single one of my Asian Christian friends has visited me yet). We’ve visited them. One family moved to Vancouver so we see them frequently, another family is considering moving to Portland. Sarah keeps in regular email contact with the moms. All to say they will likely be lifelong friends. Not only for Micah and Hannah but for us as well.
We just can’t wait for school to start so that Micah and Hannah can lead us to some good friends.
