Thank Goodness it's Fri...
Oh drat, it's only Thursday.
It has been a long week. I'm really not used to being around other adults. It's a funny thing that happens to stay at home parents. At first, it drives you insane to be home with the kids with very little adult interaction. So you make a point to get out of the house. But after awhile you realize that very few people really want to talk to you while you are wiping baby snot and trying to keep your toddler from climbing the walls at Starbucks. And it's so much of a hassle getting out of the house in the first place, why not just stay home? After all "stay at home" is in the job title.
So you become hermit-like, going out only when necessary and praying for some fairy god-babysitter to give you a break from the house and the children (and if you still think that magical person is your spouse, don't mind me laughing my ass off over here). I've heard other stay at home parents complain about becoming invisible to the rest of the world but I kinda like it. My own little happy bubble where my children are safe and content and I don't have to think about tricky things like the cost of crude oil and Jessica Simpson's latest boyfriend.
But there comes a time, usually when the kids begin school, where you are forced to interact with adults more often again. And I've been out of practice for 7 or so years now. The results are not pretty and I worry that people may think I have a disability. Hey now, I was a bio-chem major in college! I used to know the chemical reaction to make cocaine and be able to name all the bones in the body (now I know how to mix vinegar and baking soda to entertain children and sing "the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone"). It's tricky proving to people that I am actually an intelligent person when I answer "umm..." to the question "what do you think about immigration legislation?" Or more likely "how about this weather?" Umm...
So Monday it was Emily's tutor. "Em's doing really well with Saxon, synthetic phonics seems to work better for her than systematic phonics." Um...
And Tuesday it was the Cub Scout meeting. Which seems to be a Dad only thing around here. So me, 8 boys, and 7 dads. Way too much testerone. The science experiments went off without a hitch (seriously go put cut raisins in 7-Up, it fascinated both age groups of males for about 10 minutes). But then the dads started talking about AM radio and commute times on I95 and Barry Bonds. Um...
Wednesday was Girl Scouts. I'm finally very comfortable with the Brownie Troop. And it's funny because the girls themselves never bothered me, it was the helper mom as required by Girl Scout rules. The helper mom always wants to chit chat about the neighborhood (brand new, don't know any of these people she's gossiping about) or the PTA (see last set of parenthesis) or the fabulous restaurant she and her husband ate at last week (she has one child and like 4 sets of grandparents, I'm still asking "do you know any good babysitters?" and going through the Burger King drive-thru). I've learned to just let the mom talk and add in the appropriate "really?" or "wow!" or "sounds like fun!" Much better than "um..." right?
Tonight we have a baseball game for Zach and soccer practice for the twins. I have not met anyone on the baseball team yet so I hope I don't embarrass myself. The soccer coach understands my "I'm a stay home mom of 5 kids so please don't ask me anything tricky like how was our weekend?" issue. Which is very sweet of him considering he's a rocket scientist at NASA (seriously!) and could probably mess with my feeble Dora-rotted mind if he really wanted to. Bueno!
So tomorrow is Friday. I plan to not talk to anyone over the age of 8 until Greg returns home from work. He already knows better than to ask any questions other than "where do you want to order pizza from?"
Um...
All Content at katiefleck.com is Copyright 2003-2008 by Katie Fleck, All Rights Reserved.
