My kids are pink. I took them out for a walk yesterday, not planning to be out long at all and therefore quite unprepared. But, of course, Sam could see lots of kids down at the playground for our complex and how can you say no when your child is saying, “I want to be wif all the ofer childwen!” And so, we walked further and stayed out longer than I’d expected. And now I have a boy with a red ear, a baby with a slightly pink face, and a mom with a guilty conscience. Oddly enough, I blogged about this very thing when I first started two years ago - it was my fourth post. And I just went to go look at it for old time’s sake. I had two comments on it. Would you like to know who they were?

One - Mama D. I love D. She’s been with me from the very beginning (well, not really. She found my blog about seven posts in and then went back and read all of my previous posts. That’s about as beginning as you can get, I suppose.) She’s someone who I feel I really know well, and our relationship has surpassed the regular internet friendship. And I’m so excited that she’ll have her second child soon, so we can continue to commiserate.

Second - Daring Young Mom. Isn’t that funny? She was my very first commenter on my blog ever. It was probably the only time she ever came over here, and it was probably because I left her a comment saying I had just started blogging. I remember how very excited I was getting my first comment. All of a sudden the whole blogging thing made sense, and I was hooked.

But now, on to sunscreen. The other reason I let my kids roast yesterday is because I didn’t actually have anything in the house to put on them sunscreen-wise. I had not yet done my research to find a product to use that wasn’t laden with toxic chemicals. So I’m all over that today. If you haven’t yet found it, Skin Deep is a really helpful site when it comes to finding products that are safe and don’t contain dangerous ingredients. I think my husband found it back when all that stuff was coming out about the dangers of ingredients in baby soaps and shampoos. We now use it to check the products we already have, as well as researching those we might want to buy. You can look up individual products to find out how the products you use are ranked, or you can search various types of products to find the safest to bring into your house. I just printed out the list for baby sunscreens (it ranks them according to both health hazard and sun hazard, and the safest are listed last with the more hazardous listed first - it’s backwards - so I can see that the Coppertone water babies that I was using last year is like an 8 on the hazard scale…excellent) and will use it today to help me find something I can feel good about. And then maybe I can stop calling Robby Robster.

If anyone has a sunscreen they feel good about as far as the ingredients and the sun safety please let me know. I’d love to have a personal recommendation for this. Steph? Ashlee? Kate? Charline? You’re the first that come to mind on this one.

Labels: Learn More Every Day, Mommy friends

Sooooo…we’ve lived here nearly 9 months and I’ve made precisely one friend. Sure, I have acquaintances and other moms I talk to at playgroups and stuff, but as far as someone I feel I have a mutual connection with I’ve just got the one. It may sound like I’m complaining, but I actually feel I’m quite lucky for meeting her and developing our relationship. I think it’s very difficult to find someone you really understand in the midst of being a stay at home mom, especially when you throw a move to a new city into the mix. At playgroups and parks and museums and such you really are only starting with the common thread of having a kid, not like meeting people at work or an activity where from the start you have a common interest. It’s hard, especially considering the fact that you have to make your connections while wrangling your toddler and trying to mediate fights over sippy cups - can you really have a decent conversation with a stranger while your kid is dumping cheerios on someone else’s floor or stealing a baby’s rattle?

Well, somehow I did. And the best part: she’s got a daughter exactly Sam’s age. I know. Lucky. We spend at least one morning a week together, wrangling our kids and successfully having meaningful conversation over the decibal levels of our screaming children. It rocks. Sam is quite passive around this girl. I think he is amused by watching her. When she says, “Bam sit here,” he does so and then watches to see if she is pleased. She is. “Bam push,” and he pushes her around in the wagon, both smiling. He sits and lets her listen to his heart with her stethoscope and when she wants a toy that he has he very quietly walks up and hands it to her. Somehow their personalities just work well together.

Today was the day we decided to get the Hubbies together too, so we headed over there for brunch. A real brunch. We ate quiche and the other adults had mimosas. I was in charge of the “something sweet” and we all sat around the table, kids strapped into boosters, and chatted while trying desperately to get our children to eat something other than muffins, which works in its weird way since our kids are the same age and what is normal for us is also normal for them. There’s no fear of Sam making a mess or being too loud, because their daughter is doing the exact same stuff (she’s actually much, much louder).

Afterward we all headed for the playroom and the bedroom for pony rides and bed jumping as we regaled each other with tales of parenting and memories of former lives. We were like real adults again as we positioned ourselves around the bed to create a buffer that would stop one of the tots from flying off the bed as they flung themselves around.

And to top the morning off, I give you this little gem:

Labels: Mommy friends

Since becoming a mom I have experienced more feelings that remind me of my middle school days than I have in a very long time. And I don’t mean the passionate, tear gushing crushes or the general rebelliousness I felt against every adult in my life. I mean the need to be accepted by “the group.” I thought this insecurity had been dead and buried along with my Deb hairspray, Sun-In, and Def Leppard tapes, but apparently not. I’ve felt that jealousy over and over again for the past 11 months and am trying to figure out why.

I noticed it the first time when I tried to take Sam to a new mom’s group at the hospital where I had him. I went only twice, mainly because he was so amazingly fussy that it was not worth the effort of the drive, dealing with him for the hour and a half, and the drive home. But there were reasons I felt it was not worth it to me to make it a priority. I felt, for the first time since childhood, like the new kid at school. All the moms already knew each other, which I expected. But I also expected them to talk to me since I was new. And they didn’t. So I tried to be outgoing while holding my cranky baby face down on his belly and jiggling him to keep him satisfied, but I was always the one to initiate the conversation and frankly they just didn’t seem interested. It was like they just didn’t want anymore friends; they were set. And I was left wondering how they had decided before they’d even met me what they didn’t like. Had I not yet lost enough baby weight? Did I seem as tired as I felt? Did I smell? (Seriously, I really smelled that first summer I had him. Something to do with breastfeeding and hormones I think.) I couldn’t believe the things that were going through my head. When was the last time I was seriously concerned over the possibility that I had no friends because of B.O.? Middle School.

My insecurity reared its ugly head every time I walked by another new mom who avoided eye contact and did not say hello. I yelled at them in my head for the rest of the block, “We are both new moms! I can see your baby in your front carrier and I know she’s not much older than Sam. I know you know what I am going through. Can you not even smile an empathetic, exhausted smile? Is it because I have the $30 Snugli instead of the $100 Bjorn?” Amazing. It was like I wanted to go out and get myself that hideously ugly and ridiculously expensive pair of Z. Cavarricis.

I read this article, Mom Cliques: Where Do You Fit In?, in a recent issue of Parenting magazine that was all about the roles women take on in “Mom Cliques.” In fact it was written by the woman who wrote the book on which the movie “Mean Girls” was based, Rosalind Wiseman. The roles I had to choose from included things like The Queen Bee Mom, Torn Wannabes and Desperate Wannabes, Sidekicks, and Outcasts. Are you kidding me? Almost every single “type” was negative in both connotation and description. I was horrified and offended as a mom, a woman, and a person above the age of 12. I’d like to think that I and we are better than that. I thought the article was so discouraging since it stated these types as fact and offered very little in the way of solving this problem if it truly exists. And I guess I was a little scared (hence my violent reaction). I had experienced some of the same feelings already and was not even in a “Playgroup” yet. What if this was just the beginning?

For the most part I did not find much good in this article because it felt like it was giving moms a bad name. But this part: “Cliques form when we feel pressured to bond to survive a stressful experience — and there’s not much that’s more stressful than parenting,” I get that. I feel like I am in middle school again because I don’t know what I am doing. I am insecure about my ability to parent my child and that fear pervades everything else in my life, just like the fear of learning who I was way back then made me an obnoxious, petrified, zit covered little monster (I was a middle school teacher for a few years and intend to be so again when Sam is a bit older so don’t get me wrong – I love the little monsters specifically because I remember what that felt like). So I see the connection here, but we are older and wiser now, so let’s move on from this clique thing.

Don’t we have something in common simply by being moms? And I’m not saying we should all be BFF and get those broken heart necklaces that fit together to prove our eternal loyalty, but is a “hello” too much? A smile? Eye contact? Isn’t the shared experience of birth and mothering a major connection between 2 people since it is currently the common focal point of our entire lives? My best friends in middle school were made through a common interest in the color black. I feel like we should be able to stop and look at each other’s babies when we walk by on the street and not have to wonder if the other woman thinks we aren’t dressed like a hip enough mom for her to be seen with us.

Labels: Absolute Favorite Posts, Bloggy Stuff - Memes/Links/Business, Mommy friends, Mommyhood