November 16, 2005 - Wednesday
A kid in Harry's kindergarten class, Ben, invited Harry to his birthday party this coming Saturday. When we got the invitation a couple of weeks ago it seemed like a pretty straightforward matter. Ben had been on Harry's T-Ball team and at the beginning of the school year was one of just three or four kids in Harry's class that he knew. Plus, it was a party. What kid would pass up a party?

Almost rhetorically, although also perfunctorily to keep Harry in the loop on his own activities, I asked Harry if he wanted to go to Ben's party. Amazingly, he said "no." It took me a couple of days of poking to get at why not, because at first, of course, Harry wouldn't admit that there was any reason.
"But Ben's your friend, isn't he? He was on your baseball team."
Harry finally conceded that Ben wasn't such a good friend. I poked some more and learn that Ben had (once or many times, I don't really know) knocked down a building Harry had made out of Legos or blocks. I told Harry that if Ben wasn't a nice kid and did mean things like that, then perhaps that was a good reason not to be his friend.

We'd procrastinated calling with regrets about the party, although I'm not sure why. Harry had said why he didn't want to go and we could have taken him at his word. I waited until yesterday to try and call, but there was no answer and no answering machine. Today Harry and I happened to be driving by Ben's house on the way to pick up Jeremy at school and saw Ben's mother in their driveway. I said something like "we probably should stop and tell her that you can't come to the party."
"I've decided I want to go."
"What? I thought Ben wasn't your friend."
"I changed my mind."
"Oh Harry, I'm glad he's your friend again, but this is serious. They need to make plans for how many kids are going to be there and you can't be going back and forth."

Tonight Harry's mother called and asked if Harry could still come. It turns out that Harry had actually told Ben and his mother that he couldn't come to the party last week we she was volunteering in his class, although he wouldn't tell them why. Mommy explained the story of the blocks and that there had been some children's tiff, but that Harry and Ben seemed to be friends. All's well that ends well, I suppose.


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