Silly Mom Thoughts

Something miraculous is happening in my house as I type this. Brace yourself, this is huge. Are you ready? Okay. Both Bug and Bean are napping soundly, leaving me to blog and eat delicious Toblerone chocolate in a peacefully quiet house. Oh, how few and far between these glorious days are! To add to the wonderfulness of today, the sun is shining and I haven’t had my usual morning sickness for two whole days now. Somebody pinch me, I must be dreaming.

Since we have spent far too much time indoors lately, watching endless amounts of TV and Disney movies, I decided to pack the kids up and head for the playground this afternoon. Although I know my kids love going to the park, I always dread going without another adult to chat with. It’s so boring! They aren’t nearly old enough to where I can sit on a bench nearby and peruse through a magazine, so instead I find myself standing near the playground equipment watching them go up and down the slides. Of course, I cheer them on and interact with them, but it gets a little repetitive after a while.

Today there was another mother at the playground with her two children. Immediately, her kids ran up to Bug and whisked him off to play with them. It was adorable, I have never met such friendly kids in my life. Now, Bug is normally a friendly kid who gets along with most anyone, but he and the little boy his same age hit it off famously. They were holding hands, hugging, sliding down the slide together, it was too sweet.

Meanwhile, the mom and I chatted. She was cool and friendly. She told me how she grew up in another country and her children were bilingual, which pushed her cool-quotient through the roof. Her husband has season tickets for the Seahawks, Turk and I have season tickets for the Seahawks. They live only a few blocks from us. Our sons were born within two weeks of each other. We chatted on and on and our boys continued to play.

We then reached that weird part of any coincidental meeting at the park: To trade phone numbers or not to trade phone numbers. It’s the part of interacting at the playground that I dislike. It feels so much like dating to me. Playground dating.

I hate being forward, so it feels awkward for me to blurt out, “Hey, we should get together again since our kids play so well together. What’s your phone number?” Instead, I tested the waters a bit. “Wow, we should get these boys together again and do a play date or something,” I chuckled, so she could either take what I said seriously, or just chuckle along with me and ignore my remark.

I watched nervously from the corner of my eye as she reached for her phone. Holy moly, did I just make a new friend? Sure enough, her next words were, “Why don’t you give me your number and we’ll meet up again?”

Yessss! I made a playground date! Despite speaking in toddler babble all day, I am not completely socially inept! What a relief. We traded phone numbers with the promise to get in contact soon.

As far as playground dating goes, I think 2nd base involves meeting up again in a public place. If that works, we round 3rd base and schedule a play date at one of our homes.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Having kids truly forces you to open up socially. Although I’m fairly outgoing as an adult, I was painfully shy as a child. Sometimes, especially in unfamiliar situations, I find myself resorting back to that shyness. But, if I bring my kids along, there’s simply no option to be shy. If Bug is playing nicely (or sometimes not-so-nicely) with another person’s child, it would be awkward of me to not give the other parent at least a grin or some sort of acknowledgement (and sometimes an “I’m so sorry!” if Bug wasn’t being so nice).

I have been around parents who very clearly do not want to be interacted with. I always attempt a “Hello” or some sort of nonverbal communication, but there are some times when parents are off-the-charts antisocial. I was once at a children’s museum with Bug and my son and hers were playing nicely together. I tried to give her a friendly grin, and in response she made her kid stop playing and go somewhere else. She would physically move her child away from Bug any time they came in close proximity to each other. Now that was by far the weirdest interaction I have ever experienced.

No matter, though, there are plenty of Mama Fish in the sea (like the uber cool one I met today!).

Trackback URI | Comments RSS