Moms Baffle Me

I think I'm flunking Mom Friends 101. Warning: this is going to be a bitchy post.

First, let's get this out of the way: I have several absolutely fantastic mom friends -- and one good Dad friend. Sadie has a semi-regular playdate with her buddy Sam, whose parents have been friends of ours for years. We get together and gripe about feeding issues and in-laws and debate how one ought to amuse a toddler on long car rides, and all of that's great. Tomorrow, however, they will become parents to TWINS, in addition to their two-year-old. So our lazy, pleasant afternoon play dates are going to have to be put on hold for awhile.

I have a few other mom friends here and there -- but getting together with them is tough. One just scored a full-time writing position and suddenly she has no spare time anymore, for anything. Our weekly walks around Lake Balboa are no more. Another works in Santa Monica and lives in Hancock Park, which is hell and gone from Studio City, especially in traffic, so play dates have to be carefully coordinated days in advance. A third is great for get-togethers at the LA Zoo, but she and her husband and their daughter went to Europe for most of the summer.

All of this has made me realize an ugly truth: I am not good at making Mom Friends.

A lot of new moms complain about not having mom friends, but eventually they go and find them. I wanted to find some, too. So when Sadie was a few months old, I joined several internet meetup groups for new moms. I went to a couple of meetups. I hated them. These moms were SERIOUS about mommying. They wanted to discuss cloth diapering and sleeping in the family bed and the benefits of homeopathic medicine (hint: there are none) and the difficulties of having two year old twin boys WHO ARE STILL NURSING. Me? I just wanted someone to talk to about what good movies were out (even if we had no time to go see them) and how I couldn't wait to start getting manicures again, and is it really so terrible to have a glass of wine at four in the afternoon, if you're stuck at home and your kid is being extra screamy?

So, the meetup was not my scene. I began scouring kid-friendly places for groups of women who seemed cool, like the kind of women I'd LIKE to spend time with. I had no luck, until one day at The Playroom, I hit pay dirt. A group of women in their 30s, all with nice hair but food and spit-up on their clothes, were chatting and laughing and occasionally checking their email while their cute little kids played in the ball pit. Hey! I like to check my email while my kid plays in the ballpit, too!

I started talking to them immediately, and we hit it off. One, a woman named Michelle, introduced herself as a casting director. It was so refreshing to talk business rather than bottles. These women were like me -- they had help once in awhile so they could work and have their own lives, but they also loved being moms and spending time with their kids. When they left, Michelle gave me her phone number and told me to text her to set up a park play date for her daughter and Sadie.

Of course, I waited three days to text her. I didn't want to seem desperate.

When I did, it took her a day to respond. We finally set up a time and place, but as it often happens with baby play dates, it felt through -- Sadie had a bad morning and her nap ran long. I canceled and suggested we reschedule.

I never heard from her again. Sigh.

Being broken up with by a new mom friend feels bad, but it wouldn't be the last time that happened. I think my desperation is starting to show. When Sadie hit it off with another girl who attended the same physical therapist, I pretty much overwhelmed her mom with invitations to come over and play. We did a couple of times, but I haven't heard from her in months.

My mother-in-law swears that the preschool years are the era in which you start making your lifelong mom friends. I'm skeptical. I've met most of the moms that Sadie will be going to preschool with -- they're the same moms whose kids are in her toddler group right now. A couple of them are nice; others are, to be perfectly blunt, snobbish and unfriendly. I've yet to find a connection with any of them.

So what to do? My new tactic is just to wait for my pre-existing friends to start having kids already. Come on, girls -- we're all in our 30s now. Don't leave a bitch with a toddler hanging!