16 March 2006
real moms don't laugh
So there I was, at Gymboree class, with my 2-something daughter, known here as One. I was an "older" mom (and by the way--why is that always "-er"? why not just the plain unvarnished, non comparative, adjectival truth? I WAS AN OLD MOM) at 42, with a full-time "outside the home" job, as they say. And an equally full-time one inside it too. And, need I say, everything those days was a blur? I remember missing a bag of frozen peas and putting it down to having misremembered buying it. A couple weeks later, there it was, in a kitchen drawer. A very damp kitchen drawer.
Anyway, so there we were. The drive out to the 'burbs had been one long stop-and-start traffic jam. The parking lot was full of washed and waxed Volvos (this was back in the preSUV days of suburbia). One and I clambered out of our beat-up, dirty, ten year old pickup truck and managed to find the church's gymnasium only a few minutes late.
Inside, the perfectly coifed and manicured properly aged moms chatted among themselves, keeping half an eye on their equally perfectly coifed and color-coordinated daughters. Me, I was feeling every one of my 42 years after getting maybe 3 hours of sleep the night before--and not all in a row either--and wearing something or other I was reasonably sure didn't have much dog fur on it, or not too much anyway. One had insisted on not changing out of her Lion King pajamas and her hair stuck straight up, except in the places where it stuck straight out.
One was having some fun, maybe, but not that much. It was pretty clear that she considered the various tubes and mats and climbing structures to be some kind of hard labor.
So we were both feeling a bit un-Gymboreeish. And the relentlessly cheery background music didn't lighten the load much. Fortunately, every now and then there'd be a welcome pause when the tape had to be changed.
It was during one of those pauses that One said, in a voice that carried like a lovely little silver bell, "Whew, I'm hot. I need a beer!"
Ulp.
Thinking quickly, I quipped back: "Oh no honey, you know we never have a beer before noon."
No one laughed. The silence was deafening. (By the way, that really happens, that "deafening" thing--it's not just a cliche.)
Three more seconds ticked by.
The annoying music started up again. The Real Moms, released from their spell, resumed their perfectly coifed conversations.
I thought about trying to explain to one of them--any one of them--that kids say the darndest things and of course I never, and she had never, and well who knows where they pick up these things..... but instead One and I found our shoes and our pickup truck and headed for the Dairy Queen.
You got to know when to fold 'em.
Anyway, so there we were. The drive out to the 'burbs had been one long stop-and-start traffic jam. The parking lot was full of washed and waxed Volvos (this was back in the preSUV days of suburbia). One and I clambered out of our beat-up, dirty, ten year old pickup truck and managed to find the church's gymnasium only a few minutes late.
Inside, the perfectly coifed and manicured properly aged moms chatted among themselves, keeping half an eye on their equally perfectly coifed and color-coordinated daughters. Me, I was feeling every one of my 42 years after getting maybe 3 hours of sleep the night before--and not all in a row either--and wearing something or other I was reasonably sure didn't have much dog fur on it, or not too much anyway. One had insisted on not changing out of her Lion King pajamas and her hair stuck straight up, except in the places where it stuck straight out.
One was having some fun, maybe, but not that much. It was pretty clear that she considered the various tubes and mats and climbing structures to be some kind of hard labor.
So we were both feeling a bit un-Gymboreeish. And the relentlessly cheery background music didn't lighten the load much. Fortunately, every now and then there'd be a welcome pause when the tape had to be changed.
It was during one of those pauses that One said, in a voice that carried like a lovely little silver bell, "Whew, I'm hot. I need a beer!"
Ulp.
Thinking quickly, I quipped back: "Oh no honey, you know we never have a beer before noon."
No one laughed. The silence was deafening. (By the way, that really happens, that "deafening" thing--it's not just a cliche.)
Three more seconds ticked by.
The annoying music started up again. The Real Moms, released from their spell, resumed their perfectly coifed conversations.
I thought about trying to explain to one of them--any one of them--that kids say the darndest things and of course I never, and she had never, and well who knows where they pick up these things..... but instead One and I found our shoes and our pickup truck and headed for the Dairy Queen.
You got to know when to fold 'em.
