BFFs

The idea of friends only occurred to the twins when they were in K2, where they started to become independent of one another. Their friends and interests diverged round about that time and slowly, they had their own little group of friends. Even then, their primary playmates were still each other.

This isn't really the case for Muffin. The twins are Muffin's playmates the way siblings are but he isn't always in sync with them. First of all, there's an age gap. Secondly, they didn't share a womb.

So, sometimes he feels slighted and left out. Perhaps, because of that, he is more forthcoming about being friends with other little kids.

He talks about his little friends in class more than the twins did at his age and he is more keen to play with them than they were.

His favourite friend right now is Jack.

Jack's mom and I are friends from college days so we are have often hung out with the kids around us. But it has been only the younger two that have got on like a bush on fire. They talk about one another and pester us, the moms, to organise play dates for them. They even arrange their own dates between themselves.

They play with each other, they egg each other on and they laugh at each other's lame jokes. They even try and help each get out of sticky situations even if it would have meant one falling into the pond.

They even make up games with one another.

Inadvertently, they fight and the ultimate warning of "you're not my friend anymore!" gets issued; a much more grammatically accurate version of what it was during our time in school with the abbreviated but very powerful "Don't friend you ready!"

But even with that, they are still asking for play dates and Muffin constantly talks about the things he and Jack did. Jack's first words the morning after the play date was to ask when Muffin was going over again. Obviously, there were no hard feelings.

Watching little people is always amusing. Watching them negotiate the social world and figuring out what works and what doesn't is even more amusing. Muffin declares Jack his 'best friend' right now.

For the moms, we are pleased because it gives us more reason to hang out and since they can keep each other occupied, even better.