Mommy Friends

I have a confession to make. I'm having a really hard time making friends with other moms. It's not for lack of trying. I join playgroups, I join online meetup groups, I make walking dates and playdates. But here I am, over a year into motherhood, and I can count the number of other moms that I would call "friends" on one hand. With several fingers left over.

I guess I imagined that becoming a mom would fling me headfirst into the mommy world, and I would miraculously fit in. But it didn't, and I don't. I get together with other moms, and I find my normally ebullient self shutting down, and slipping into outside observer mode.

It's hard to talk to other moms. We have this one, enormous thing in common. Parenthood. And it's a rather enormous field of subjects, so we can occupy ourselves for hours simply on that one topic. But that may be the only thing we have in common. And "mommy-talk" really gets to me after a while. If we talk about the good things, it comes across as bragging. If we talk about the bad things, we open ourselves up to unsolicited advice, or, worse yet, that also comes across as bragging. Sometimes I feel like parenting becomes a competition, one way or the other. Whose child started walking the earliest? Who got the least sleep last night?

And it's almost impossible to talk about parenting choices with other moms. I've made a fair number of "alternative" parenting choices so far, and I'm sure there will be more to come. Babywearing, cosleeping, gentle discipline, cloth diapering, baby-led weaning, extended breastfeeding, selective vaccinations. And I honestly enjoy discussing these types of issues, and the thought processes that go into making these types of decisions. But it's almost impossible to have those kinds of discussions with moms who have stuck to the more "mainstream" choices. I actually talk about breastfeeding more with my single, male friends than I do with other moms. I suppose because other moms are too close to the issue. It's hard to have a stimulating intellectual discussion about something that you are in the middle of living. When you're too close to something, "I chose not to do X because..." sounds an awful lot like "You are a bad person because you do X." It's a bit easier if you manage to find a mom who agrees with you on something. You state your view, with enormous relief, because you can't say it to anyone else, and she responds, with equal relief, because she's been dying to say the same thing. But it's not a conversation that goes anywhere. You vent, you agree, the end.

I go through phases where I just want to give up entirely on making mom friends. I usually enjoy myself more with my pre-mom friends. Talking about the rest of the broad spectrum of non-parenting-related subject matter. Playing games. Hanging out. But as much as I enjoy myself with my non-mom friends, there is this enormous part of my experience that they don't understand first-hand. Becoming a parent redefined me, redefined my world-view, redefined my priorities. Other moms can understand that, and that's an immensely valuable connection to make. Being friends with other moms is important for precisely the same reason that it's hard: motherhood is so close to our hearts.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that I know how mommy relationships should be, and all those other mommies out there are doing it wrong. It's more the opposite, actually. From my "outside observer" stance, it seems like mommy friendships are genuinely working for other people. I feel like a kindergartner who got bumped up to high school math because she knew how to do polynomial equations. I feel like I don't belong here. I just want to go back to my play-dough.

On the bright side, there are one or two other kindergartners that have been bumped up as well, and we can build play-dough pizzas together while solving those polynomials. And it seems like there are a few high school students who, against all odds, like play-dough too. And even though I know I'm taking the analogy too far, it's not all bad. Confusing as all get out, but not all bad.

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Thirteen Months Old

I had pretty much decided that I was going to stop doing monthly letters after Valerie turned one, but I was still somewhat up in the air until the date of her thirteen month birthday came and went without a birthday photo shoot. That sealed the deal. Monthly letters will now be replaced by annual letters. Or maybe semi-annual or quarter-annual, while she is still little and changing so frequently. I haven't decided for sure.

Since this blog is my lazy parent substitute for a baby book, however, I am still going to bore you with milestones and such. Valerie's 13th month was a big one for language development. She is quite the little chatterbox, and every day, her chattering sounds a little more like real words. She knows that the dog says "oof", the cat says "mao", the tiger says "warr", the trucks go "voom", and the elephant says (I can't type it, but it sounds like a trumpeting elephant, I swear). I'm a little disappointed in myself for caving and teaching her the stereotypical animal noises, but she learned dogs and cats on her own, and our board books have lots of pictures of animals to identify, and very few pictures of classic rock bands to identify. (Note to children's book publishers: Make that book. I will buy it.)

She still points at things and asks "wuhs da?" and I am now confident that I was not giving her too much credit last month when I said I thought she was saying that. She's a smarty, and I shouldn't have doubted her. She now says variants on window, outside, trees, dog, more, book, duck, doll, door, and light, in addition to mama, dada, nana, no, yeah, uhoh, hi, and bye. (I may come back and edit this list later, as I remember words I have forgotten.) She also started using the sign for "eat" this month. Oh, and the other day, as we were getting ready to go out, I said "let's go", and she repeated "let's go", clear as a bell. Which is why I have stopped watching R-rated movies with Valerie on my lap. (Although I am still resisting the whole "made for babies" genre of annoying television/movies. We've just been watching more family-friendly movies, with fewer repeatable words that start with "F".)

And no, she is still not walking yet. (Which someone seems to ask me about every single day.) I am quite okay with that, too, since she seems to be more than making up for it by being ahead of the curve linguistically, and she's hard enough to keep up with crawling and climbing and cruising. I still haven't found the time to baby-proof the house, yet. It guess it's like fixing the leak in the roof - You can't fix it while it's raining, but it doesn't leak when you could easily fix it. Something like that, anyhow.

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