Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Oh, I Wish I Was a 1950s Housewife
Staying home with Mae is the greatest, greatest thing. It is. It really is. But it's also boring sometimes.
Like, take today for example. We got up early and went to Mom and Tot class, which was neat (we made clay footprints and sang itsy bitsy spider), but then, afterwards, Mae and I were at a loss for what to do with ourselves. And it was still only 10:15 a.m.
So we puddled along, taking our time getting home and ended up at the grocery store buying Halloween candy. One hundred mini chocolate bars and 500 rainbow suckers later, we were on our way back to our much too quiet house.
Some days, I'd be fine with that. But, today, I couldn't take it, so I decided to be adventurous and go to one of those Movies for Mommies matinees. I was planning to be all brave and chatty, and hoped to finally meet some other moms to hang out with. I even dressed Mae up in an especially ridiculous pumpkin hat, thinking it might be a good conversation starter. But we got all the way there to find the theatre closed. And Mae was so heavy in the baby sling that I couldn't face going anyplace else. So we just came home.
And now Mae is sleeping, and sleeping, and sleeping, and I'm sitting here with 100 chocolate bars and too much time on my hands. It'd be a bad combination at the best of times, but right now it is especially dangerous considering I've still got a wack of pregnancy weight left to lose.
I need some mom friends in the worst way; preferably cool ones, who like to go out places and who don't spend all their time talking about the current colour of their baby's poo - but I can't seem to figure out how to find them. Mae and I go to a ton of baby and mom things, but the conversations never seem to progress past the superficial: "Oh, isn't he/she cute. How old is he/she?" Or else there are these weirdly competitive undertones to everything like "Has she/he rolled over yet? Oh, MY baby did that at 2 months."
I will surely go to feminist hell for saying this, but lonely days like this make me wish I could be a 1950s housewife because, if I was a 1950s housewife, all my friends would be 1950s housewives, too.
We'd all be married by now, and we'd all be having babies at about the same time. We'd spend the mornings doing the ironing and setting our hair - or whatever -, watch some soaps after lunch and then meet in somebody's living room for coffee while the kids played and we all swaped meatloaf recipies and complained about how bored we were while we waited for our husbands to get home.
It'd be fantastic, I bet. Or not. But, at the very least, we'd all be in it together.
Like, take today for example. We got up early and went to Mom and Tot class, which was neat (we made clay footprints and sang itsy bitsy spider), but then, afterwards, Mae and I were at a loss for what to do with ourselves. And it was still only 10:15 a.m.
So we puddled along, taking our time getting home and ended up at the grocery store buying Halloween candy. One hundred mini chocolate bars and 500 rainbow suckers later, we were on our way back to our much too quiet house.
Some days, I'd be fine with that. But, today, I couldn't take it, so I decided to be adventurous and go to one of those Movies for Mommies matinees. I was planning to be all brave and chatty, and hoped to finally meet some other moms to hang out with. I even dressed Mae up in an especially ridiculous pumpkin hat, thinking it might be a good conversation starter. But we got all the way there to find the theatre closed. And Mae was so heavy in the baby sling that I couldn't face going anyplace else. So we just came home.
And now Mae is sleeping, and sleeping, and sleeping, and I'm sitting here with 100 chocolate bars and too much time on my hands. It'd be a bad combination at the best of times, but right now it is especially dangerous considering I've still got a wack of pregnancy weight left to lose.
I need some mom friends in the worst way; preferably cool ones, who like to go out places and who don't spend all their time talking about the current colour of their baby's poo - but I can't seem to figure out how to find them. Mae and I go to a ton of baby and mom things, but the conversations never seem to progress past the superficial: "Oh, isn't he/she cute. How old is he/she?" Or else there are these weirdly competitive undertones to everything like "Has she/he rolled over yet? Oh, MY baby did that at 2 months."
I will surely go to feminist hell for saying this, but lonely days like this make me wish I could be a 1950s housewife because, if I was a 1950s housewife, all my friends would be 1950s housewives, too.
We'd all be married by now, and we'd all be having babies at about the same time. We'd spend the mornings doing the ironing and setting our hair - or whatever -, watch some soaps after lunch and then meet in somebody's living room for coffee while the kids played and we all swaped meatloaf recipies and complained about how bored we were while we waited for our husbands to get home.
It'd be fantastic, I bet. Or not. But, at the very least, we'd all be in it together.
