Mama's Big Day Two Hours

As I've mentioned, I joined MOMS Club months ago, but haven't attended many activities, because most are in the morning, when we're still in bed.

I've started to go to a few events, including a few on my own, but I've always found one reason or another to change my mind.

Recently, though, the time change has worked in our favor and, combined with some early/short naps on Saturday, we've been both asleep and awake pretty early (for us) the past few days.

Also, we're realizing that, at a year, it's probably time for me to get out on my own occassionally, and for Shrike and Peeper to have some one-on-one time of their own, too.

To that end, we made plans for me to attend "recipe club" today. The theme was "Italian," which I certainly wouldn't have tried a few weeks ago, but with our recent permission to push things with the dairy (more on that another time - we might be going a bit too fast with it) it sounded like fun.

Of course, as it came time to actually do it, there was much hemming and hawing, and "are you sure?"ing on my part, but with Shrike's help (she cooked "lazy lasagna" last night, while Peeper slept in my lap), I actually went - and we all survived.

Quite well, in fact.

I had a good time once I got there, and Shrike and Peeper seem to have had a good time at home.

And I only cried twice on the way there.

No, really.

First, when I left the house, of course.

I took Peeper from Shrike, to tell her goodbye, and that she was staying with Mommy (I already told her yesterday and earlier today, for what it's worth), and she started waving - now, normally her "wave" is sort of an arm flop - but no, she's doing a full-on, hand open-and-close baby bye-bye wave.

At Shrike. Like she's going with me.

Ouch.

"No, honey. Mama's going bye-bye, and you're staying with Mommy."

She seemed to be okay when I was leaving; she might have been fussing a bit, but I tried not to listen.

Then, about the time I got myself pulled together, damn Johnny Cash went and sang some song about love and there was a line about ". . . a mother's tenderness, as she pulls her baby to her breast . . ." and there I went again!

Then, when I got there, I was barely in the house when this little girl asked me, "Where's your baby?"

And, of course, everyone else asked, too.

I did tell a few of them that this is new for us, and nobody made fun of me.

And, even without Peeper there, I even found people to talk to!

One woman is about to have gastric bypass surgery, so we talked about that a lot, another woman has been a gestational surrogate, so we talked about IVF stuff, and then I was just talking with some others about general baby stuff.

As one would expect at Moms Club.

I called home twice - once to check in, and once to let Shrike know I was on my way home - and she said they were fine, and I didn't hear Peeper in the background, so I guess she was happy.

She was very sleepy by the time I got home, but Shrike said she wasn't cranky at all, just rubbing her eyes and shaking her head to stay awake!

She didn't take her for a walk (one of thing strategies we'd discussed, if Peeper wasn't handling it well) but she probably would've gone to sleep if she had.

I do have to say that, having watched her greet Shrike every night when she gets home from work, it was kind of nice to be on the receiving end of that.

I told Shrike once, "I never get that reaction" and she told me, "Well, you have to go away for her to miss you."

What do you know? It worked!

She was none too happy about me wanting to stop and pee before sitting down to nurse her, but she got over it, and once we got settled, she was asleep within about a minute!

Shrike tells me that Peeper did very well while I was gone. She said that she looked for me a couple of times, and she thought "Oh shit, here we go..." but that she was fine.

I guess that's about the best-case scenario. I wouldn't want to think she didn't miss me at all, but I'm certainly glad that she wasn't upset the whole time, either. And I'm very glad, for Shrike's sake, too!

So, all in all it went very well, and especially if we can keep her on this earlier schedule (we'll see what I manage tonight when Shrike is at work), I am going to try to go to more Moms Club stuff.

I will take Peeper with me to stuff that's really for kids (like the pumpkin patch), but I think I'll try to go alone to some of the stuff that's for moms and the kids just play (at least until she's big enough to play with them), and try to go to some of the mom-only stuff, like some of the coffee and lunch things.

If I don't chicken out again.