Little Men of Mine
Monday, July 31, 2006
Another Monday Funday
Today we took the kids to a sprinkler park, as it was set to reach 100 degrees here. This time it was four moms and 14 kids, but more joined us for lunch, and we descended on Subway with 22 people. We have to go somewhere different each time because I don't think we're welcome back many places after we hit them with our big obnoxious crowd. But today was a little different because the Subway we visited is owned by one of the moms who was with us. So she called ahead and told them to reserve the back dining room for us, and we had our own, confined space. For once we didn't have to worry about disturbing other patrons with our burping contests (the 8-11 year old boys) and food flinging (the 2-3 year olds)!The thing I love about this group is that, with all the diverse ages of the kids, everybody finds someone to pal around with, take care of or turn to for diversion. Today, we had two 11-year-old girls with us, so they took over the 2-year-olds and sat at a separate table (yee-hah!). The five 3-through-6 year olds had their own table, and the bigger boys all sat together in a corner. The moms really had the chance to talk, virtually uninterrupted (except, of course, for all of the interrupting WE do over the course of a conversation).
It's hard for me to believe that I didn't even know any of these women five years ago. A neighbor recruited me to the group right around the time my oldest turned one. Now, I 'm pretty much the only one left in the moms' group from the old gang, since their kids are all in school, and mine are still little. Of course, there are new people with babies, but I really only see them at our weekly library get-togethers. I haven't become plan-something-once-a-week, sign-all-our-kids-up-for-the-same-team-so-we-can-gab kinds of friends with the newcomers (I'm not kidding--last year we had seven 4- and 5-year-old "buddies" on the same soccer team who considered games their personal social/wrestling/goofing around time. I felt so sorry for the rest of the kids on the team who really wanted to win!).
I don't know, maybe those friendships will develop with time, but I'm really in a different place than the new moms are. Even though I still have babies, my world doesn't so much revolve around babies anymore. I've been through all those firsts three times already. My concerns and immediate goals are so different than theirs are. But on the other hand, this more experienced place is where a lot of my friends were when I started coming around, a first-time mother. And look how far we've come!
Posted by Jennifer @ 3:55 PM