Let me just start off by saying when it comes to interacting with other women....I am just straight up awkward. Think Dharma from Dharma & Greg, but with a heaping does of any Ben Stiller character. There's no way around it, so I’ll just admit it upfront.
I am a tom boy to the nth degree, I can fit in with a group of men like nobody's business, but when it come to interacting with most women, I fit in like a whore in church.... SO when I was pregnant with DS I was under the impression that having a child would give me an "in" with women. For once I would have something in common with the gal crowd... right?!?
Imagine my surprise when I had DS and found that being a Mom made me even LESS relatable to other women. And yet again, today's activities reminded me just how little I fit in, and for the first time I wondered if DS noticed that his Mommy is weird too...
So today I took DS to his first play group. Like clockwork, the Asian moms grouped together, the Indian moms flocked together... hell even the two "mail order brides" managed to find each other, while the Caucasian women welcomed me with open arms sized me up and spat me out in three seconds flat. WTF, I didn't even get the chance to open my mouth and alienate them first... this time. Today I was judged on my jeans, white tee-shirt and black baseball hat. They didn't even take the time to reject me for my sparkling personality.
As all the moms, (who all seem to know each other) pair off their children, DS is left to walk around and chew on things all by himself. Thankfully he is oblivious and such an independent little soul. But sooner then I can say "Mommy doesn't own any Prada..." DS has abandoned me. The little turncoat. He had crawled off and was happily chewing on one end of a play screwdriver while sharing the other end with little Yong-Cho.... obviously he has no problem bridging the ethnic gap. As he, Yong-Cho, and their newest co-hort Abby shared the maracas from the musical tub, DS surveyed the room and his gaze settled on me. He seemed to notice that EVERYONE was paired off…. Except yours truly. I froze where I stood, and felt the warm rise of panic flood into my neck and cheeks. Did he just realize his Mommy is “the weird one?” Is this the moment where I go from being the center of his toddler world, to the PITA parent who lives to embarrass him?!?
Thankfully he flashed his jack-o grin, dropped the rain stick, and crawled towards his Mom without a second thought to the toddler gang he had just joined (milk in/ milk out) not three mins earlier. As he grasped the hem of my jeans he shakily stood next to me and grabbed my hand as if to say, “For this one second Mamma, you don’t have to be alone. I don‘t think you‘re weird.”
So I guess for now, the jig isn’t up….. I put him down and he crawled off to the arts and craft area to try and eat a glue stick….. My weirdness is hidden from DS for one more day.
