Play Group

Play Group

2 weeks ago the lovely woman up the street invited me to the ward/neighborhood play group. Our ward is full of many many babies, there are about 14 that aren’t even 18 months yet. You can imagine Sacrament Meeting... Most of these children are the mothers first born, which is great since Stella is my one and only. But the difference in Stella and I and the other women in our ward, I’m at least ten years younger than all of them. Trevor and I are the youngest couple in our neighborhood, let alone the youngest couple with children. Everyone else are pretty much grown ups, and Trevor and I are just, well we are just kids working on being grown ups.

Anyway, so the lovely Ms. Bean invites me and Stella to play group. I was so excited to meet everyone at the park and socialize with adults. So excited for Stella to play with other kids. So last Tuesday I got up early, showered got dressed, bathed Stella and dressed. I got a head start on my work so it would be ok to take an early lunch. I thought it might be a good idea to put Stella down for a nap so that she could be extra delightful. Well, I got a little wrapped up in work with her being asleep and lost track of time. I looked up at the clock and it was already 11, we were going to be late for our first play group. I hurried and woke up Stella and buckled her into the stroller and headed off to the park.

We aren’t the first ones there, and we aren’t the lasts. Works out perfectly. I meet the other ladies as they are laying out their blankets and getting the children's toys, I realize, I have nothing but my baby and a diet coke. Yep, showed up to my first day at school freaking naked. So I have nothing to entertain Stella with, nothing to change her diaper if necessary, no bottle, no snacks, no blanket to sit on, no jacket for her to wear if it gets cold, I have notta. Fantastic Tehm, way to make that great first impression. So I sit down on the wet grass and attempt to have Stella on my lap, who was I kidding? Stella sit on my lap? Get real. She managed to make her way over to all those other children and there mothers who came prepared. She managed to steal there snacks and play with there toys. I quickly made my way over to the swings and pushed Stella for the remainder of play group and when she got bored with that, I made a lovely excuse of having to get back to work. I made my way out of there so fast I was practically running. Where was Heather when I needed her. I left play group feeling like I was a the reason all of these mothers had waited until their thirties to have children, it was like “See thats why we wait, because clearly in your twenties you don’t have your shit together. You can’t even bring a blanket to sit on.” But by golly, I had a Diet Coke!

So this week, I went back to play group, with every single item I could think of. Blanket, goldfish, diapers, wipes, toys, rattles, cookies, books, sippy cups and more. It was like packing for a road trip, trying to get it all in the basket of the stroller. Needless to say, I redeemed myself at play group, but next time I’m gonna remember the key item that gets us through our day: the diet coke.