The Downside of Geographic Single Parenthood
So, I'm back to singling it again - on and off, anyway, while Bill is PCSed to parts unmentioned and Andrew and I wait for his medical clearance to clear again. It was only during today's playgroup that I realized the real downside to single parenting.
It's not the lack of sleep, or having to be The Enforcer. It's not even the five or ten minute when Andrew's attention is focused on the other adult and I can cook dinner without a toddler underfoot, trying to climb into the 400 degree oven. Nope. It's the inability to have grownup conversations that every so often do not mention poop.
Or birth stories, as it turns out. Now, I expected birth stories when I joined the group, when Andrew was two months old. I mean, it's to be expected. You get a bunch of new mommies together and the birth stories just start flowing. But then we all got to know each other, and the birth stories just sort of faded into the background.
Except now, there's a fairly sizable number of mommies among Andrew's age-mates who are pregnant again, or just had a new baby. And with those bellies and babies, come new birth stories, or recycled birth stories.
The first time around, I didn't mind listening. I saw it as either educational, or even another thing to add to the Why Adoption is Better Than Pregnancy list. This time, though, it's kind of getting on my nerves.
Or maybe it's the fact that today, the birth stories lasted for an hour of the 90-minute playgroup and I spent most of the telling in a different part of the room, sitting by myself and staring out the window, because I had nothing to contribute and couldn't be worked up enough to care, because it's been three days since I talked to another person in person who could actually talk back and did not demand that I read him "Good Night Gorilla" twenty times in a row before naptime.
(I'm a little testy. Bedtime did not go smoothly.)
(Also, another twenty minutes was spent on the Virtues of Cloth Diapering, which is yet another conversation I thought we'd left behind 18 months ago. Yes, I use disposable, but they're the 7th Generation not-as-bad-for-the-environment-as-some diapers, so as far as I'm concerned, I have nothing to be ashamed of.)
(Except maybe ending a sentence with "of", but I'm not going to expend the mental energy to rephrase that sentence so it's grammatically correct.)
I know I missed the adult conversations last year, during that long stretch of time while Bill was overseas. I think I got spoiled, though, during the ten months he was home, when I could get them on a regular basis (and did). Calling people is all well and good - and helpful, and I do call friends, usually at least once a day, toward the late afternoon when I'm really hurting for a poopless conversation. But the ebb and flow of a telephone conversation is different from one you have in person. There's something about being able to see someone's face, and get a sense of their reaction, that you can't get if you're on a telephone.
On the drive home from the playgroup (which Andrew enjoyed immensely - he knocked over the water table twice and had a shouting match with the two-months-younger host), I thought about creating a playgroup where I could say up front that no birthing stories are allowed, period.
Except I have the feeling no one would come. And if they did, they'd ignore the rule anyway. *sigh*
I can feel my brain atrophying over here. Although I suppose the fact that I still know the definition of "atrophy" is a good sign....
It's not the lack of sleep, or having to be The Enforcer. It's not even the five or ten minute when Andrew's attention is focused on the other adult and I can cook dinner without a toddler underfoot, trying to climb into the 400 degree oven. Nope. It's the inability to have grownup conversations that every so often do not mention poop.
Or birth stories, as it turns out. Now, I expected birth stories when I joined the group, when Andrew was two months old. I mean, it's to be expected. You get a bunch of new mommies together and the birth stories just start flowing. But then we all got to know each other, and the birth stories just sort of faded into the background.
Except now, there's a fairly sizable number of mommies among Andrew's age-mates who are pregnant again, or just had a new baby. And with those bellies and babies, come new birth stories, or recycled birth stories.
The first time around, I didn't mind listening. I saw it as either educational, or even another thing to add to the Why Adoption is Better Than Pregnancy list. This time, though, it's kind of getting on my nerves.
Or maybe it's the fact that today, the birth stories lasted for an hour of the 90-minute playgroup and I spent most of the telling in a different part of the room, sitting by myself and staring out the window, because I had nothing to contribute and couldn't be worked up enough to care, because it's been three days since I talked to another person in person who could actually talk back and did not demand that I read him "Good Night Gorilla" twenty times in a row before naptime.
(I'm a little testy. Bedtime did not go smoothly.)
(Also, another twenty minutes was spent on the Virtues of Cloth Diapering, which is yet another conversation I thought we'd left behind 18 months ago. Yes, I use disposable, but they're the 7th Generation not-as-bad-for-the-environment-as-some diapers, so as far as I'm concerned, I have nothing to be ashamed of.)
(Except maybe ending a sentence with "of", but I'm not going to expend the mental energy to rephrase that sentence so it's grammatically correct.)
I know I missed the adult conversations last year, during that long stretch of time while Bill was overseas. I think I got spoiled, though, during the ten months he was home, when I could get them on a regular basis (and did). Calling people is all well and good - and helpful, and I do call friends, usually at least once a day, toward the late afternoon when I'm really hurting for a poopless conversation. But the ebb and flow of a telephone conversation is different from one you have in person. There's something about being able to see someone's face, and get a sense of their reaction, that you can't get if you're on a telephone.
On the drive home from the playgroup (which Andrew enjoyed immensely - he knocked over the water table twice and had a shouting match with the two-months-younger host), I thought about creating a playgroup where I could say up front that no birthing stories are allowed, period.
Except I have the feeling no one would come. And if they did, they'd ignore the rule anyway. *sigh*
I can feel my brain atrophying over here. Although I suppose the fact that I still know the definition of "atrophy" is a good sign....