These things just happen to me. I can’t explain it.
When I had my first baby, and I became a Stay at Homer, I found myself home all alone quite a bit, feeling really blue. My mom gently pushed me to join the local Mom’s Club chapter. “Ugh,” I whined, “I don’t need new friends,” and I threw myself on the couch, still in my jammies, cuz that’s how I rolled. It was probably 2pm. But, yes, I DID need new friends: mommy friends. Because as much as I wanted to pretend I was still up for gallivanting around with my college girlfriends, staying out past 9pm with them (gasp!) was not so easy when I knew I had a date with a baby at 3am. My girlfriends weren’t home all day, up to their elbows in poop stained onesies, and for some reason they didn’t want to talk about poop (strange?) so finding some gals who lived near me AND were Moms AND were also home all day changing diapers sounded like the sane thing to do.
I emailed the local chapter, got an email back, (too quickly if you ask me, because, really, I wasn’t positive that I REALLY wanted to join), but I went to a meeting and met some fabulous women, with kids, who lived in my neighborhood. Yay. Mom was right. We’d have play dates and official meetings (sure I’ll be the Secretary!) and park days and make-baby-food days, and walking days, and gossiping days (we NEED our gossip, need it darn it).
Jump to a couple of years later, and I now have a 2 year old and an 8 month old. We are having fun with our Mom’s Club friends, and it was a Friday: Play date day! Now, we had had a few incidences during play dates with kids flooding bathrooms and smearing poop, and while we forgave, we’d never really forget, so I swore my kids would NEVER make unnecessary messes at other people’s houses. My kids would NEVER. never. So, the play date was in my neighborhood, far enough that it would take 3 minutes to drive, not including the time needed to load and unload the kids into the car seats, but close enough that I could walk it in 10 minutes or so. My calculations are most likely off, but whatever, you get the gist. It was a beautiful day so I loaded up the jogging stroller with 2 kids and all of our gear and our snack (every play date is a potluck!), and feeling super successful, strolled out.
We arrived at our destination incident free. I unloaded the stroller, my 2 year old ran into our friend’s house, I picked up my 8 month old, and she threw up on me. Just a little bit though, so I thought maybe the walk was too bumpy for her, no big deal, I figured it was just glorified spit-up. I walked into the house, laughed it off with my mommy friends, and wiped off my shirt. But my shirt still smelled. Smelled bad. And my 8 month old was clingy and warm. Not good signs. But I pretended everything was FINE. just fine. I was not going to be the mom who brought the sick kid to the play date. (This denial would come into play again at her 1st birthday party, and I am still apologizing for the stomach flu that went home with the goody bags. AND taking credit for the weight everyone lost. You’re welcome.)
So I am sitting in my friend’s cozy living room, in her comfy leather arm chair. Leather. Oops, I better move. So I walk into the kitchen, holding my 8 month old, standing over the tile, not quite sure what to do or who to tell. As I get distracted and start to join in on the latest gossip (her neighbor did what?!? that lady is crazy!), my baby girl vomits uncontrollably all over my shirt, my hair, my pants, the tile. The other Moms kicked into action and grabbed paper towels and helped me as best as they could, while trying to stay cootie free and ushering all the other kids out of the kitchen. And all I could think about was getting my kids out of there and going home. But I didn’t have my car. Oh geez, I only had the stroller. Walking home with a puking kid? Yay. And while I had 4 changes of clothes for the kids in the diaper bag, I had nothing for me. This was going to be an awkward smelly walk home. But my friends had another idea, and while one Mom friend held my daughter (saint!) I suddenly found myself in my friend’s shower, in my clothes, trying to wash puke down the drain. Yuck. Look who’s making the mess now. I was so mortified. And then it got a little worse.
As I turned the shower off, standing there in my soaking wet clothes, wondering if this was one of my better decision making moments, my friend kindly tossed some clean clothes of her own into the bathroom. Bless her heart, but she’s about 6 sizes smaller than me. Walk home in wet clothes? Or walk home in what should be sweats and a T-shirt but on ME will be booty pants and a clubbing top? I shivered. And my shirt still smelled. So I went with the dry booty clothes. My face probably totally red, I walked fast out of the bathroom, grabbed my kids and tried to get the heck out of dodge. But another friend had a different idea. She offered to drive me home to get my car. I took the offer and we drove the few minutes to my house to get my car. I ran in my house, peeling the gifted outfit off of me as fast as I could, threw on some pajama like outfit, got into my car and went back to get my kids, hoping that my daughter hadn’t puked again. In the end, she was fine, but by the time I got my little circus home, I wanted to cry and sleep and eat a box of cookies all at the same time.
I never walked to a play date again.
RITZ
momantic comedy 
I really did just LOL. I know people say they LOL, but I really just did.
LOL! thanks for reading!!!
Thanks for the memories. I don’t think I even remembered this. It was a great laugh,of with you not at you. 😉