Brown-eyed babe recieved her very first party invitation on Monday. It is a first birthday party for one of the brown-eyed babe's baby buddies at daycare. This shall be the first soiree that is geared toward her. Exciting for her. Scary for me. This means that I will now have to actually interact with other mothers. Egad.
Oh, the anxiety.
I see brown-eyed babe's baby buddy Monday through Friday, but I have never seen the mother. She is not my friend. She is not even technically an acquaintance. But our daughters are "friends". By no choice of their own, and babies aren't very discriminatory when it comes to their peers.
Therefore, thanks to the fact that brown-eyed babe is a budding social butterfly I must get a gift and sit with strangers for two hours. All in the name of babyhood. The gift. What to get? I have no idea. Should it be a toy? Or clothes? It's not like a baby shower where there is some sort of registry.
Plus, there is the guilt I feel for all the moments that I compared brown-eyed babe to her baby buddy and found my child to be cuter, smarter, etc. etc. Not that she necessarily is, but it's a knee-jerk reaction. I can't help myself.
So here is to a socially awkward situation that is most likely all in my head.
3 comments:
oh she is cuter and smarter - no doubt about it. other people's babies are often rather ... well, frankly, rather plain. not yours of course - other people's. don't worry about what you're going to talk about to the mummy. just let her tell you how many more teeth her girlie has than yours (and silently grind yours). have fun!
All social situations are awkward for me, especially ones involving other mothers. It's like dating but at least when you are dating it's like a testing period. In the end if the person you are dating doesn't cut the mustard or pass the test so to speak, you can break it off. With mama-friendships, you seem to have to run into them at the park, at daycare, at Target. It's harder to make a match and it's harder to break a non-match. It's not as cut and dry as romantic relationships. I have cut off one mama friendship, though, with, "I don't think I can be friends with you anymore." That was beyond tough.
We are all guilty of comparing our children. Perhaps mama-tition, as I like to call parental comparison/competition, just might be innate. Digging on your blog ... in Southern California three-kid madness.
Good luck picking out gifts.
Just wait, soon she'll be getting one every other week and you won't know how to handle all the invites. With four kids it seems like one of them gets a party invitation every month.
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