Posts Tagged ‘Friendship’

This is Chris’ first week back at work after spending the past three months home as a family.  It hasn’t been too bad, really.  I miss him during the day though.  Sometimes Bean will do something funny and I’ll look around to say something to Chris and he’s not there.  That part sucks.  But I’m sure we’ll all get used to the transition.

A few weeks ago I went to a play group for infants and mother’s at my church.  This would be the event where Bean got into a church brawl.  I had a really nice time and met a lot of super cute moms and babies.  And it was good for Bean to get out and be with other children since he is no longer in daycare.  Then, last week, I got an email from one of the moms asking if I wanted to get together for a play date.  I was so excited!  So, we made plans to meet yesterday at the church playground.

Yesterday morning I woke up in a cold sweat of anxiety.  I had never done a one-on-one play date before.  What would we do?  How would Bean act?  What would we talk about?  Oh, the pressure of dating!

And for the rest of the day as I got ready for our date, my mind went crazy with thoughts:

“Should I wear pants?  No, it’s too hot.  How about shorts?  No, too scary.  What about a skirt?  No, too dressy.  Capris.  I’ll wear capris.”

“DAMN!  I only have black capris and brown shoes!  Why didn’t I buy any black sandals?!?!  Stupid Chris on a budget!!!  Maybe I can wear white capris.  Yes, definitely the white.”

“Can I put Bean in a funny t-shirt?  How about his, “Most Eligible Bachelor” one?  No, too forward for a first date.  Maybe he should wear a collared shirt?  No, I don’t want him to be a nerd.  Casual.  We’ll go casual.  “Boys Will Be Boys” t-shirt it is!”

As I loaded Bean into his car seat and drove over to the church, I started wondering who I was getting ready to meet.  See, at the moms and babies breakfast, I met several different moms and babies and I wasn’t quite sure which one had emailed me.  I had it narrowed down to three moms that it could have been, but I wasn’t positive which one it was going to be.  I hoped that it was this really nice, laid back mom that I had met in the parking lot of the church, but I really didn’t know.

Thankfully, when I turned the corner into the playground, I was so happy to find it was the one from the parking lot!

We played on the swings for a while, holding our babies in our laps and catching up on how we’d been since we last saw each other.  She shared about a few mother’s groups that she has joined and how that has helped structure her days as a stay-at-home mom, and she invited me to join one of them.  After we were all sufficiently hot and sweaty, we loaded the babies into strollers and walked around downtown for a while.  All in all, it was a pretty great play date and a nice reason to get out of the house.

Play dates are strange things, though.  There is definitely a reason they call it a date.  You are really testing people out, seeing if you can hang out together civilly while our kids play.  This was the first sort of friendship I had made that revolved around my child and while it was so great to spend time with someone in my same situation as a parent, it did make me miss my friends who knew me before I was just Bean’s mom.  My friends who have known me since they were pulling me off of table tops in college (only once…).  My friends who have known me since I wore cut off jean shorts and thought my face was the appropriate shape for bangs.  My friends who were there the day I got married and the day I had my baby.

New friends are a blessing because they give me something to look forward to in this new place.  But old friends are the backbone who have pushed me to be the person who I am in this new place.  I guess the Girl Scouts were right.  You need both kinds of friends in your life.

Ya’ll.

P-Dub knows my name.

Well, technically, she said Bean’s name first.  But seeing as to how he is of my loins, I feel that counts.

Let me tell you the whole story as events transpired yesterday…

5:45pm – Chris, Bean, me, and our chaperon, Sarah, arrive at the bookstore where I have a major meltdown in the car and refuse to go inside because I am positive I have humiliated myself enough already.

5:55pm – Chris drags me inside.

6:00pm – We arrive at the bookstore and I am shocked (though I don’t know why) to find the line has already snaked around TWO FLOORS of the store and we are, sadly, at the very end of the line.

6:05pm – PW begins a Q&A session on the second floor.  Sadly, I can’t hear any of this because we are on the first floor and practically out of the store.

6:15pm – Sarah steals Bean and takes him over to the children’s section to play.

6:20pm – I hear a faint Ethel Merman impression drift out over the bookstore.

6:35pm – PW concludes the Q&A portion and begins signing cookbooks.

6:45pm – Sarah returns with Bean because he spit up all over himself and the floor of the children’s section.  I clean up Bean and take a turn walking with him around the store.

7:00pm – The line has not moved at all and Bean is starting to get fidgety and fussy so Chris takes him out to the car to play.  Sarah and I start discussing celebrity gossip.

7:25pm – I get a desperate text message from Chris, who has been walking Bean around outside the bookstore.  I take a juice bottle and the diaper bag out to the boys and then I head back inside.

7:45pm – Sarah and I are now discussing our career goals and Tiger Woods.

8:00pm – Chris gives up and brings Bean back into the store where Sarah and I have now started discussing religion as it relates to Sandra Bullock and Jesse James.

8:05pm – Bean spits up again.  Apparently something isn’t sitting well in his tummy.  Chris changes his clothes in the car, but he is starting to smell a little…ripe.

8:15pm – We give up on standing and set up camp in line, entertaining Bean with food and toy trucks.

8:20pm – Bean has had enough and decides its time to leave.

8:30pm – I chase Bean around the store for a good 15 minutes.  Finally, the only way I’m able to get him to sit still is to give him his favorite toy.  An infant Tylenol bottle with rice inside for him to shake.

8:31pm – People in line give me weird looks for giving my son medicine bottles to play with.

8:35pm – Bean tires from the shaker and decides to take a few phone calls on his cell while we wait.

8:45pm – We finally make it up to the second floor of the bookstore where Ree is!!  Yay!!

8:55pm – Bean spits up a third time.  He now smells like…I don’t even know.  Something potent and sour.  We give him a sponge bath in line with diaper wipes.

8:57pm – Ree looks up from signing and sees us standing a few people back in line and she shouts out, “It’s BEAN!”

8:58pm – I faint.  (Not really.)

9:04pm – We are about third in line and Chris, Sarah, and I are all talking quietly and I hear Ree, who was having a conversation about shoes with someone else, call out, “Katie’s wearing flip flops!  And she just moved here from the cold!”

9:05pm – I wet my pants.  (Not really.)

9:10pm – Finally, its our turn with Ree and she jumps up and gives us a big hug, telling people, “We’re old friends!”

9:11pm – I faint again.  (Not really.)

9:13pm – I tell Ree that since security didn’t stop me, I’m going to assume that we actually ARE best friends and that to consummate our friendship, I had brought her half of a friendship necklace.

9:15pm – And then she said she had to do a cleavage check because of the flowy shirt she was wearing.  I told her thanks for keeping it real.

9:16pm – (This was the best part)  We just chatted for a few minutes.  Like best friends do.  About her trip.  About her book.  About Bean.  About our giveaway that Rachel won earlier this week.  And she signed Rachel’s cookbook as we chatted.  And I thought I heard her say, though I can’t be sure and I’m paraphrasing, “YOU ARE THE BEST FRIEND I’VE EVER HAD!”  (Not really on that last part.)

9:18pm – After a few minutes of chit chat, Ree took some pictures with us.  Don’t judge the fuzz in my hair.  I blame the humidity.  And don’t judge the fuzz in the pictures.  I blame my friend, Sarah.

9:19pm – And she took one with her camera, too.  Because I’m sure she needed one for a frame in her house.  Or for her Christmas card this year.

9:20pm – My friend, Sarah, had her cookbook signed as she insisted that she had nothing to do with my stalking shinanigans.

9:21pm – I took a blurry picture of PW and Sarah.

We left after that and before I could get out the door of the Barnes and Noble, I was squealing with excitement.

My work here was done.

Until we meet again, my friend…

So, apparently, Florida has its perks.  And so does unemployment.  Which is why at 11:00 on a Friday morning, I was able to take Bean over to my friend Sarah’s house for lunch and swimming in her pool.

Bean was a big fan of the water.  It was pretty cold, so we eased into it.  But once he was in there he seemed to really like it.  I bought him a blow up boat so that he could sit in the water and I wouldn’t have to hold him the whole time.  It also had a canopy that kept him out of the direct sun so he wouldn’t burn.

Bean has a little car at our house and whenever Chris pushes him around on it, he makes an engine sound, “Grrrrrr…..”  So, I guess Bean Man thought that his boat worked off the same engine because the entire time I pushed him around the pool, he made that engine noise.

But his favorite thing was when I would run his boat into the walls of the pool.  He loved bouncing off the walls.

After pool time, we took a little time out to play on the patio.  Sarah has a dog named Nala who was so sweet and gentle with Bean.

I could almost hear Bean thinking, “Molly!  You’re white!”

After romping with Nala, Bean decided to get his groove on with Sarah.  He never can pass up a chance to dance with a pretty girl.

I wish you could hear what was happening during these pictures.  Sarah had music playing out on her patio and I promise you that every time a Fergie or Black Eyed Peas song came on, Bean would start dancing.  When that song would end and another singer would come on, Bean would stop dancing.  But the next time a Fergie song came on, he’d start again.  It was so funny!  He has very particular taste in music, I guess.

Fergie on…

Fergie off.

You know, I have highs and lows since we’ve moved.  My lows are pretty darn low.  I miss my routine and my house and my friends in Connecticut.  I miss working and I definitely miss having two paychecks.  But, looking in the rear view mirror makes it hard to keep your eyes on the road in front of you.  And I’m learning that adjusting to change means finding the happiness where you are today .  And today was pretty fantastic.