The young woman turned to me and said “Isn’t it nice that kids can meet other kids at a park and know within 5 minutes whether they get along. And then they can play all day together and at the end of the day leave and never see each other again…and not worry about it.”

I agreed with her but inwardly I was amazed; my son never meets other kids and plays like this. He will either just play with me or he’ll drag me by the hand to a group of kids and beg me to talk to them to see if they can play together. Today was different.

We are in the middle of vacation week. Max and I had decided to spend the day at one of our favorite spots. It is a fort dating from World War II in Kittery Maine. Called Fort Foster it consists of several old buildings, a playground, hiking trails, beach, and plenty of barbeque pits.

We followed our standard procedure. The two of us drove up to Maine and got off at Exit 2. At the Kittery rotary is a great hot dog place. We always stop for an early lunch. From there we drive up to the fort. During the summer we can park on the grounds but until then we have to leave the car at the gate and then walk a quarter of a mile.

Generally he gets hyper focused on one spot. For example, he might want to just collect shells on the shore for hours. Or he may concentrate on exploring the buildings. We have done a lot of hiking there. And sometimes he will just play in the playground.

Today, even though it was a cold April morning he already had his bathing suit on. Our first stop was the beach. He threw off his sandals and ran into the water. Next thing I knew, he was dancing on top of the waves it was so icy. He decided that it was a playground day.

When he got there he noticed 3 boys his age playing on the merry-go-round. One boy was doing the spinning while the other two sat on it and held on. Max asked me if he could join them. I shrugged my shoulders and told him it was up to them. He ran and began to help them spin.

This led to nonstop fun for the day. I followed at a distance to make sure Max didn’t have one of his explosions. In the process I met the other boys’ Mom. When she made the comment about the kids and parks I agreed but not only was I amazed that he was playing with them I was a little jealous.

This has always been our trip. We would run through the water, hike the trails, climb the buildings. Don’t get me wrong, I know that he must grow up and learn to make friends and I am glad this is working out for him. But I am still missing “our trip”.

But to get back to Max. He played with the boys until about 4 pm when we all decided to move on to Dairy Queen for hot dogs and ice cream. We then finished off the day at a school playground before heading home. He hasn’t mentioned the boys at all since. It has been a week since we were there.

And this wasn’t a fluke. The next afternoon Max and I spent 4 hours at a skateboard park where he met another skater. This also is new. He may ask older boys for skating advice but he never talks to kids his age. The two spent the whole time together; even moving on to the playground next door when they got bored. When the day was over they said good bye and moved on. I’m not sure if Max even knows his friend’s name.

That was Wednesday. Thursday we went to the skateboard park again where Max met another boy. Within minutes he decided he wasn’t interested and proceeded to play by himself.

The mom in Maine was right. Not only had Max been able to “size up” other boys he was interested in playing with but he has been able to move on without wondering whether he would ever see these kids again.

However, late Friday evening he was over his grandparents’ house when he met their friend’s grandson. Max became obsessed with playing with him. He had already had two meltdowns Saturday morning when he found the other boy wasn’t available to get together with him at different times. And he was very hyper and had to be spoken to more than once when he did finally get to play with him.

So even though he is expanding his horizons I still have to keep watch to make sure that something doesn’t happen to ruin the day. I initially wrote this post on Saturday; he was scheduled to sleep over his new friend’s house that night. I waiting with bated breath to see how it turned out.

I can see that as he learns to make new temporary and permanent friends there are going to be set backs. As a parent I am going to have to learn to go with the flow and help him adjust.