Parenting Partners

Yesterday when we made it to J Bean's pre-k class we were met with a teacher suffering from a migraine. She was in obvious pain and shouldn't have been there at all, honestly. Several parents, including me, upon seeing her discomfort decided to take our kids home rather than leave them with her. Despite my soul dying a little at the thought of missing out on my "free time" during JB's class and Link's nap, it just seemed like the right thing to do for the teacher's well-being and to prevent our children from being eaten by her if they decided to scream in her face while she was dealing with the pain.

I noticed some of the kids, including J Bean, were getting upset at the change in plans despite her earlier protests of being "too sick" for school. I decided to swallow my neuroses and ask a few of the parents (all Moms except for me) if they wanted to bring their kids over to our place to play for a while and have a pot of coffee to ease the passing of the disappointment (ours).

The problem:  In my head, I'm going over every speck of trash on the floor, every dirty dish in the sink, every piece of loose laundry and questioning the status of the aroma of the house as I'm telling people to come over.

My house isn't really bad but it was not freshly cleaned and I'm sure all those "in charge" of keeping a house up are occasionally worried about what others may think. This is further complicated for me when it comes to a crew of Moms, because I start to think they'll be quick to judge my suitability as a person who cares for children if I have a dirty floor for some stupid reason. Turns out (as I should have known) what is far more important is that we are all caregivers of small children- We're members of the Parenting Club together... Parenting Partners if you will. Those Moms just wanted to hang out, shoot the shit, drink some coffee and let the kids entertain each other and they didn't give a hoot about a few spit up stains here and there, dishes on the counter, an overfull trashcan and a cluttered living room. I guess what I'm trying to say is; Moms and Dads have a lot more in common than we often think. My house was a little messier when the play-date was said and done, I was jittery from the extra java and (as you know) Link ended up getting a jolt of his own, but I really enjoyed the time and the kids had a blast. None of these Moms follow my page because I never mentioned it and I never really thought it would be their kind of entertainment, but I think I was mistaken.