Prior to last week's nervous-break-down at the local mommy & me holiday extravaganza, my only experience in a mother/baby atmosphere was in our laid-back Friday meetings at a Los Feliz kid's store, where several moms and kids get together, eat snacks and chit-chat. (See Toddlers and Twos.) Everyone's very cool. Mellow. No force-feeding the kids "Itsy-Bitsy Spider". No weird song and dance. No organized activities. Just chaos. And food. My kind of group.
I have been making an effort as of late to get out more. To make friends with fellow parents or at the very least tolerate the local-moms in the neighborhood. For Archer's sake and also for my own. Because a part of me would very much like to have a "group." I would like to have friends who have kids so we can organize fun parent-kid activities. Someone local. (Any Hollywood area moms out there?)
I'm a fairly outgoing person. I say hello to strangers and make an effort (I think?) to make friends. It's just that, in all honesty, I don't really want to make friends with the kind of people who are gung-ho on Mommy & Me sing-a-longs, with their assorted baked goods and their dozen lanyard key chains and PTA buttons. In fact, I don't even know why I bother trying to pretend like I do. It's such a waste of time and energy and in part, the very reason why I ended up freaking the fuck out mid Holiday-Sing-A-Long. I was anxious and scared out of my mind I might become one of them.
I don't know when it happened, what spawned my "Daria Disorder", my inability to sit down like a normal person and partake in activities. It's not that I feel "too cool" to sing along. I just think it's stupid. And I feel like an asshole. Like I have better things to do, and not to sound like a complete bitch, but so does Archer. He's the DariO to my DariA and would rather be running around in a circle, outside than sitting around in a circle, in a room with very small windows.
I guess now we know. We tested those waters, now, moving on... At least we have The Dragonfly Dulou. And the San Diego Zoo on weekends. Socializing with sheep and baby deer can be so much easier than socializing with moms and baby humans.
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