We just returned from a lovely reunion of the core friends of the Working Moms’ Group that I was a part of and organized for two years when Lucas was a toddler. Deidre hosted it at her place and Kelly and Ambrosia, Karen and Toby, and Crystal and Kayla attended, as well as the four of us. Deidre has a 4-year-old (Alex) and a new baby (Jace) who is 9 months old. It was surprisingly fun to get together again, perhaps it was because of the long hiatus since our last gathering, or perhaps it was because it didn’t have the obligation of being an official Moms’ Group meeting. Or maybe it was because the whole idea of the Sunday supper was Deidre’s and not mine, and I didn’t have to bang a drum to get everybody on board. It just fell together beautifully and effortlessly. 

Asher and I had our first Mommy & Baby class today.

It’s really called Parent Child class, but I suspect it will be all mommies. Only one other pair was there as the class is still forming, but Peggy and Willow seem nice. The teacher is called Teacher Marie. She is intense, warm, strong, experienced, and has a lovely singing voice. I think we are going to enjoy our Tuesday mornings in the class. The babies played. The mommies and teacher chatted. We had a snack. We sang songs. We walked to the farm and visited the sheep and the llama. On the way, we watched the 3rd and 4th graders playing on recess. Asher liked the new toys in the classroom—all wooden and beautiful, many handmade. He liked the rattles and the dollies and the wooden animals and gnomes. He really liked a surprising item: metal disks from the ends of frozen juice tubes. They made a fantastic sound when they crashed into each other. The teacher said, “Yeah. I know. Funny, eh? These are some of the most popular items in the whole classroom.” Which, I gotta tell ya, was full of thousands of dollars worth of heirloom-quality toys. Kids are weird, and yet, I understand completely why these metal disks were so interesting to him.

He really loved Willow, a six-month-old. He wanted to touch her face, especially her nose. Asher can be a bit rough because he doesn’t know better, so I spent a lot of time right next to him trying to keep him from bopping her in the head.  One of the things Asher loves to do at home is look at his books full of pictures of babies. And here was Willow—a real baby in the flesh!

One of the things that mommies do, especially when they get together, is to share tricks of the trade, and figure out where each one stands on the GREAT PARENTING SPECTRUM, which basically goes from Attachment Parenting/EC/Waldorf/Organic/Raw/No TV/Hippy/Drives-a-Horse-and-Buggy on the far left and Traditional/Authoritative/Pro-spanking/TV/Junk Food/Republican/Drives-a-Hummer on the far right. So conversation meanders gradually through all these areas of choice. “If you do organic or all organic …”; “Well, I stay home …”; “He has been using the potty since …”; “We have a family bed …”; “I try to carry my baby …”; “These cloth diapers are so nice because …”; “I really have a problem with soy …”; “Back when I was raising my kids, I nursed ….”; “My poor husband was fed solids so early ….”; “This product is so good because …”; “I sew her clothing myself …”; “My mother made …”; “We avoid plastic …”; “Isn’t silk the most vibrant, warm fabric…”; “The infant and baby woolens are best…”; “Are you aware that you can get this here?” “It’s easy to make it yourself at home…” “We grew spelt…” ect., etc. 

This exercise is tedious because it happens among all moms that I’ve ever met. In one sense, it’s a competition: Who is the Best Mommy? Who is the Best “Natural Parent”? Which is extreme bullshit. But in another sense, it’s a way of feeling each other out so that you don’t say the wrong thing to someone or hurt someone’s feelings and possibly undermine their confidence as a parent. It’s a way to learn about new things that you’ve never tried or never heard of before. It’s also a way of vetting potential friends. Weird.

If we hadn’t done this sort of thing this morning, I might not have learned that the teacher lived on The Farm in Tennessee (and a sister community in Kentucky) during the 1970s and worked as a nurse in the clinic—with Ina May Gaskin. Interesting times, indeed.

We’re finishing eating lunch. 
Asher clearly has to poop. 
He is covered in pesto sauce: oily and dotted with bits of basil leaves.
I clean him up, but just barely.
I rush him to the potty.
We’re in time.
He does his thing.
From the backyard, we hear screams of agony.
It’s Lucas and he’s hurt himself.
I leave Asher on the potty and run outside to Lucas.
He is crying and limping.
He is dressed as a cowboy.
He tripped over a garden hose and fell and hurt his knee.
I pull up his pant leg to survey the damage.
No biggie: no blood.
I tell Lucas that we’ll get the booboo bag (ice-pack thingy).
I hear another scream and crying.
I rush back to Asher.
He has crawled off the potty toward the bed.
He is wedged between my bed and his co-sleeper. 
His bare bottom is hanging down and he's grasping onto the edge of the bed.
The potty is upturned.
I pick up the baby and place him on the changing table pad.
I look over at the co-sleeper.
It has Asher poops all over it.
I clean Asher’s bottom, dress him, and put him down on the floor.
He is fine now.
I clean the co-sleeper.
I clean the potty.
I clean my hands.
I clean up lunch.
I ask Lucas how his knee is now.
He says it is all healed.
I scrub the poop off Asher’s talking teddy bear.
I clean my hands again.
I sit down at the computer to write this.
Asher is chewing on the cord.
Cowboy Lucas is being eaten by a 5-foot-long boa constrictor.
It is a perfectly normal afternoon.
The End.