Mommy dates

Yesterday I introduced my fellow DC Urban Mom crew in sweeping generalizations but neglected to detail myself. For the most part- I fit the description of Upper NW Mom pushing my 2 boys, 27 months apart, in their Peg-Perego to local story times at Politics and Prose.

But, I don't always fit the mold. For one, I am one of the younger moms in DC. I did not have a wildly successful career before entering motherhood. I had both my boys under the age of 30 (ok, Jacob got pulled out 3 weeks before I turned 30, but still...) For DC, this is an anomaly. My OB would have me pee in a cup then dismiss me. I was so low risk compared to the pushing 40-something, IVF, career-women sitting next to me in the waiting room at the doctor's.

I am 31 now, have a 3 1/2 year old boy and a 14 month old boy. I am married and have been since I was 22! (Again, another DC anomaly). I went to college in DC and stayed for my masters in education, but I hated being a classroom teacher. However the experience helps me tremendously as a SAHM. Nothing was as hard as being a first-grade teacher. It hardened me for all future jobs. Years later, whenever I had a stressful day writing press releases or dealing with CEOS, I would remind myself that it was still easier than dealing with 25 seven-year olds & their demanding parents.

For the last 4 years, I have been home with the kids. The first year was incredibly hard, mainly cause it was SO boring. By 4:00 each day, I was ready to tear my hair out. I had no friends in the area, as we had recently moved back to DC from California, and all my college friends were still unmarried and existing on different planes. There seemed to be mostly nannys at the park and for a while, I hung out with them, but they always seemed suspicious of me, for reasons I wll go into in later posts.

I resorted to college techniques of picking up men, but applying it to other moms. I would head for story times or music classes and make eye contact and shamelessly flirt with other moms who seemed to share my style in parenting and usually found the stroller to be the best indicator of commonality. I always seemed to click with other Peg-Perego Venezia moms. Anything higher-end trended toward more neurotic nervous moms, and anthing lower-end, well, I didn't see a lot of Even-flo in my hood. My pick-up lines ran the course of, "What a cute onesie. Where did you get it?" "How old is your baby?" "Would you like to meet for a playdate next week?" I made some of my closest friends this way and still have playdates with them with our younger children while the older sibs are in pre- school.

I was always pleasantly surprised by how thrown the other women were in their new role as mom. I thought I was the only one suffering from serious doubts about my competence, but I met women who outshone me in the doubting department, and I found myself sharing advice and feeling like a parenting expert. As my boys have grown, my confidence level has too. I think I am dong a heck-of-a-job parenting. I wish I had a boss who could review me and give me my annual bonus, but I know the only reward I will have are the ones my boys give me.

Like this morning, when Jacob the 1 year old crawled over to Nate & threw his arms around him & gave him a giant hug & they stayed snuggled like that for several minutes. I burned a memory of that in my mind to carry over for future days where there are hits instead of hugs and tears instead of giggles.