Hit by a Pitch

You probably already know about friendship salad if you’re a toddler — apparently it’s all the rage with the preschool set these days. I, however, had never heard of it before and it’s such an awesome idea I wanted to share it here in case you hadn’t, either.

To make a friendship salad, you need, well, a bunch of friends. Each friend brings one ingredient to add to the salad. At Soren’s school Valentine’s Day party today, we had fruit friendship salad, so everybody (duh) brought fruit. Each friend added some fruit to a big bowl. We had bananas, oranges, strawberries, blueberries, cantaloupe, and possibly some other stuff I don’t remember, plus some vegetarian-friendly yogurt (no gelatin). Soren and I brought apples (sliced seconds before we left the house, lightly sprinkled with lemon juice, and stored in a tightly covered container). (For the record, Lady Alice apples are the best apples I’ve ever had in my life. They make honeycrisps seem kind of lame.) The kids all really enjoyed their friendship salad, and the parents and teachers all really enjoyed the way the kids all sat calmly at the table and ate. Kids will sit calmly at a table and eat when they’re around other kids who are also sitting calmly at a table eating. It’s not like this at home. At home, Soren is always getting up and walking around while eating. It’s almost like we need to acquire a small flock of children, just to make mealtime less chaotic.

At the party, I got to spend some quality time with Soren’s girlfriend. I don’t want to be one of those parents who’s all “Oh my infant or toddler son totally has a girlfriend they’ll get married one day OMG!” but he kind of has a girlfriend. He talks about her at home all the time and today, when we arrived, she jumped up and said, “Soren’s here!” When the kids were getting ready to eat, we had to make room at the table so she could sit by Soren. They’re just about the cutest thing, ever. BFFs, at the very least.

Anyway, you could make an adult version of friendship salad with vegetables. Or even pasta. Hell, now that I think about it, you could make a friendship pizza. Or friendship ice cream sundaes. The possibilities are endless, as long as you have some friends and they have some ingredients. It’s a nice way to share.

With respect to Valentine’s Day, I still agree with what I said last year:

In grade school back in the day, you used to use construction paper to make and decorate a simple, envelope-style mailbox and then tape it to your desk. You gave Valentines to everybody in class and received a Valentine from everybody in class. There wasn’t any drama with this. It was a little opportunity to tell each of your classmates, “Hey, I like you.” Giving a Valentine to everybody didn’t dilute this message, because the Law of Valentine’s Day is as follows: Like something about everybody and everybody will like something about you. That’s just how Valentine’s Day rolls.

As a general rule, I believe we should act the way we’re “supposed to” act on Valentine’s Day every day, but I still like the simple, little, mushy, I’m-going-to-cut-out-a-heart-and-give-it-to-you-because-I-think-you’re-neat aspect of Valentine’s Day. The day doesn’t have to be flowers and candies and whatever the hell people want to sell you, and it doesn’t have to be bitching about all those things, either. Like any holiday, it can be whatever you want it to be.

For me, it’s a chance to say: Hey, I like you.

So hey, I like you. Thanks for reading!