You're Another Mom, And So.....?

God, I hate scrapbooking. And those calendar things where you’re supposed to record, oh, I don’t know, baby’s first human-colored pooh or something. Plus, no birthday parties (at least until they can say ‘birthday party’). But I’m afraid my dislike of the Inner Girly has been losing me friends…. It’s a funny thing, when all your business cards can say is: ‘A Mother’, and you’re touting for pals at the local playground – so many of the usual warning signs or come hither looks are missing. In fact, it’s a laborious process of trial and error until you find Your Gang, and the immediate postpartum brain freeze can inhibit your decision-making process considerably. In the beginning, you cling like Saran Wrap to any human-ish person with a similar-sized bundle of joy. After a while, though, the baby minutiae invariably dies down and then you must live through the sick-making moment of discovering that you Have Absolutely Nothing in Common. The warning signs were there, like rumbles of thunder in the distance: Saving and keepsaking the umbilical stump was one (should probably have run for the hills then and there); the stacks and stacks of non-humorous Christian literature was another, but the calendar that recorded Baby’s Firsts every single day was, I think, the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. Like your college sweetheart, the moment of parting from one of your first mom friends is inevitable. And exactly like breaking up with a high school boyf, it’s as heartwrenchingly painful and as completely necessary.