A First Play Date

Today we met up with a friend of Silvia's (and her mom) for a play date in the park after pre-school. Silvie has talked about this friend, Yasmin, since she began school. Yasmin's mom mentioned that she would like to arrange a play date with us.

It was wonderful. Of course, Silvie and Yasmin share no common language except play. Yasmin speaks Dutch and Hebrew at home with her mom and dad, respectively. Before the play date, Yasmin asked her mom how to speak English with Silvie, and her mom gave her three words to say: "come," "play" and "here." I thought that was sweet that Silvie's friend really wanted to communicate with her and had thought about that ahead of time.

Silvie and Yasmin pretty much ignored each other for at least an hour. Then, in the last 45 minutes, they played. I ran around with them, tossing a beach ball at them, telling them it was "mine" and not theirs and they had to catch me. When Silvie would get the ball, she'd play with it between her legs, and pretty soon afterwards Yasmin started doing the same. Eventually, they just laid down next to each other, with the ball between them, laughing.

Towards the end of the afternoon, Yasmin held out her hand to Silvie, and Silvie took it, and they walked. A few minutes later, Silvie reciprocated to Yasmin. The language of true friendship is international.