I haven't posted in forever because I sort of got my social life back

Strange thing happened this past week: I gave this library program on post a shot. "Baby & Me Lapsit." I'd been looking at it in the newsletter and thinking about it, but never quite getting around to going to it. Now I know you're probably thinking that oh, you don't have anything to do during the day, why haven't you done this sooner? NAPS, people. Naps. I wouldn't screw with that precious sleep schedule if someone offered me a million dollars. (Well maybe for a million. Then I could hire a night nanny so I could continue on with my sleep.)

But the stars aligned this past Wednesday morning (although it didn't appear that way at first) with Sam waking up at 5:30 (not normal for him), which means that he took his morning nap at 8:00, which means that he was up by 9:00ish, which means I had time to take a shower, wear something without an elastic waistband, and get him ready to leave the house by 9:30. So we made it there on time. Early, in fact! I saw a few moms standing outside waiting for the library to open and as I was looking at their kids, I was thinking, "This is a mistake. Sam's too young for this. These kids are so OLD, like one or something, and being friends with them would be nice, but I was really hoping to meet someone who is in MY BOAT. Specifically, the seven-month-old boy boat."

So we go inside and sit down in the kids' room and I'm watching the other "babies" run around and scale bookshelves and eat paper. Sam finds them all very fascinating as there is not this much live action at home. Sometimes I will exercise in front of him but he seems to find that to be extremely scary. (And after watching myself do jumping jacks in front of the mirror once, I totally get it.) And the dogs STINK at providing entertainment unless there is an annoying squeaky toy at their disposal.
Hello TANGENT!

Just as the program is starting, another mom walks in with her baby, but her kid is an actual BABY. She sits down next to me and we say the obligatory hellos and how old is your baby and is he eating squash yet? No? Oh he likes peas instead? Wow that's interesting, my kid won't eat anything green, is that a Carters' outfit? OMG I love Carters' too! It DOES stink that there are no Carters' stores here. And have you been to the Target here? Talk about stink. Oh? Is it time to sing songs to the babies now? Ok, I'm sorry, we'll keep it down over here.

So we sing a few cutesy songs to the babies and one of the songs is a "Hello, hello, hello and how are you?" song and it incorporates all of the kids' names into the song. As soon as they got around to singing Sam's name, he started SCREAMING. I have no clue how that upset him, but it did. He ended up screaming during the rest of the songs and proceeded to look extremely socially awkward, but after the program ended (maybe 10 minutes later) and playtime began, I realized that he was probably very HOT (since the HEAT was on ohmygosh kill me now). I took some of his clothes off and he started feeling better. Then they all started playing with this community bin of toys and YUCK please don't let my child touch those toys, have mercy there is no telling how many germs are crawling all over them. But then a child (a walking, coughing, snotty, child- not a BABY) comes walking over and grabs Sam's rattle from him and STICKS IT IN HIS MOUTH. His pregnant mother tells him to give it back and he just drops it on the floor. Suddenly that is the only toy that Sam wants to play with and I was trying not to be That Mom who is sanitizing everything in sight, but I realized that... I AM HER. I couldn't bust out the baby wipes fast enough. If I'd had access to a pot of boiling water, I would have taken care of business right then, but they don't keep stoves in libraries these days so a wipe would have to do.

Back to my new FRIEND though... Her baby is 6-months-old, her husband is close in rank to Steve, we even drink the same WINE, we both see nothing wrong with putting a bottle away in one sitting (WINE, that is), love Target, hate ours, both from the South, both stay-at-home-moms and loving it. I think it goes without saying that this. is. awesome.

I'm so glad that we both ended up going to that library program this week (it was the first time going for both of us) and I'm so glad that someone else at Ft Campbell needed a friend. (How desperate and dorky does that sound, but ohmygosh, making friends is HARD.)

Now tell me if this isn't the sweetest picture you've ever seen in your entire life.

I love my life.