Projectile vomiting, emergency responders, tears, apologies. It sounds like a story about the latest Ebola outbreak. But sadly this is actually the true story of how I had to go into hiding for nearly a year. No, not because I had to enter witness protection. You see, I am an expert at majorly failing at attempts to help my kids socialize. Is there any coming back from this? You decide.
A little over 2 years ago my family and I moved to a new area. It's a smaller town of less than 25,000 people, when before hand we'd been living in the 3rd largest city in the state. My kids were 3 and 1 1/2. My oldest had always been very shy, so I knew it would be important early on to nudge her out of her shell a bit. Also, I was eager to make some new mommy friends. My closest mommy friend at the time lived over an hour away, which made making play dates difficult.
It was very cold that fall, so I'd been looking for some indoor fun for the little ones. The park district in the area offered playtime at their indoor playground for an hour each week. So each week I'd bring my kids and my optimism, sure we'd make new friends in no time at all. A month or so of this passed and I'd met a couple of other moms that seemed talkative and fun. Looking back now I realize that I was too hopeful for any of my play date dreams to be a reality. As Kanye says "When you try hard is when you die hard." Why oh why didn't I listen to Kanye?!
One fall afternoon while bonding at the park district, I lamented to one of the other cool moms(who we'll call Tracy) that my 1yr old had a nasty spill in the bathtub. This had resulted in 2 badly chipped teeth and a very loose front tooth. Because of this I'd spent 2 weeks in and out of the dentists office, while my poor baby was lightly sedated but still screaming and crying. What's worse is that he had to be restrained in a papoose. All of it was very traumatic, and I was telling the other mom about that I was really hoping that he wouldn't be scared of the dentist for life.
What happened next? Major foot in mouth. Tracy proceeded to tell me all about how her son had emergency surgery the day after he was born as well as several underlying conditions that would effect his entire life. I was horrified. Had I really just felt bad for myself? Of course other parents have worse struggles than myself, but perspective wise, my problems were so small in comparison. As Tracy noted to me. Red faced, knowing I was going to hell, I changed the subject hoping she'd see my intentions were good. Unfortunately it only got worse from there.
My daughter, who was standing less than a foot behind me decided it would be an awesome time to pull the fire alarm. As the alarm started its shrill warning I spun around and saw her cowering with her hands on her ears with bright red cheeks just like I had had a few minutes earlier. Now in her defense, the fire alarm was pretty low on the wall and had no cover or child proof lock on it at all. However my daughter was infamous for having pushed emergency buttons in elevators. So she knew that it wasn't alright. But this alarm proved too tempting on this day. This resulted in the entire park district facility having to be evacuated. Including all the classes and the senior center. I did let the lady at the front desk know it was my wayward charge who'd pulled the alarm and not an actual emergency. I was told to wait for the fire department to speak to them about it. So there we were, myself and Tracy, rushing outside, her with a 5 month old, too rushed to evacuate to bundle our kids up before we reached the freezing cold. I apologized over and over as she laughed. She really was pretty gracious about it. I tried to help her bundle up her baby. But the damage was done. I was beyond embarrassed. Especially after the fire chief gave me the sternest of talking tos. I'd love to say that I brushed all this off, went the next week and had a good laugh about it. Nope. Still, 2 years later, I haven't returned. If only that was the last time I embarrassed myself in front of Tracy. Well my luck is shit.
I'd run into Tracy a couple times since that incident. Each time we(ok mostly she) had a great laugh about the fire alarm incident. I was always extra friendly, hoping to salvage the remnants of the friendship that would've been. As 2 years passed I managed to get adopted into an awesome group of moms and nannies who are very chill and understanding and a lot of fun. But I still remembered the fire alarm as the holy grail of new mommy friend failure. Until a couple of weeks ago.
A friend and I met up at the local indoor play date hot spot. With my 2 attending different preschools and her preschooler in afternoon, we looked forward to the chance to get together whenever we could. And who do we run into but Tracy. I was happy to see her, but for mostly selfish reasons. I could've gone all "mean girl mom" on her and said "oh, hello there. I'm sorry, can't talk, meeting friends." But if you know me, you know I don't have the mean girl gene in my body. So of course I introduced her to my friend and laughed(again) about the fire alarm incident. I offered to grab her a coffee or snack from the snack bar when I was going to grab stuff(and meant it). Basically I was silently screaming "look at me, I have friends, people like me, I'm not a hot mess, I swear!" Which was totally working until my daughter projectile vomited all over her kid.
Let me just make it clear that my daughter wasn't ill. She has an extremely weak stomach. Always has. She can't even be in the same room as me when I'd change her brothers stinky diapers. The sight of melted chocolate is enough to cause gagging until she's reassured it not poop. So on this day, when she was at the top of the slide and saw a kid who's face was smeared with brown something or other(we later found out it was graham crackers) she lost it. Kids were screaming and running away from her down the stairs. But unfortunately Tracy's youngest was still crawling and basically crawled right through the worst of it as he was doing his best to get away. I ran to my daughter, assessed the situation, and managed to catch a few more spews of barf in my hands. After she told me what had caused it, I was a mixture of relieved and so so embarrassed.
Truth be told, if this had happened with any of my other mom friends, a shrug and a laugh would've been the end of it. But because it was Tracy, who'd definitely seen me at my worst as a mom, it was almost more than I could handle. And because her youngest has a compromised immune system, I knew she'd be very worried about what he might've been exposed to. My friend helped me clean up the mess and helped me keep an eye out for my kids while I let the supervisor know what happened. Then I looked for Tracy, ready to apologize, explain, and grovel. Somehow she happened to remember me telling her that my daughter had a weak stomach a long time ago(although probably because I was complaining about my small unimportant problems again). She was kind, I was grateful, and we managed to part on decent terms. Rest assured the next time she sees me, she'll run the opposite way.
Looking back on this whole mess, I see the moral of this story. Making new mom friends isn't easy. Play dates can feel like first dates. Fraught with nerves, awkward silences, misinterpreted conversations. Sure, it can be stressful. Only because I let it be, though. I was trying too hard, afraid I'd miss my chance, afraid I'd be stuck inside all winter with small children who had no idea how to behave in social environments. In my mind, not having friends at this young age would've certainly affected my kids futures, causing them to be socially awkward outsiders and not in an adorkable way. The reality of the situation is that kids are their own people, with their own personalities. They grow and change, but they are who they are. My daughter who's now 5 has no problem making friends. She's no longer the shy little girl who barely spoke to strangers. But she still takes time to herself. A small part of me wants to take credit for this because of all my work getting her out and about. Most likely it's just because she grew out of being shy. As she would say "no biggie." Not to say that I don't look forward to play dates! I love the chance to be with other adults and it's awesome to see my kids form friendships with other kids. Things go wrong, and something always will. Potty accidents, kids disagreeing or playing too rough, tantrums to name a few. It's fine. That's life in the trenches with small children. Every time you clean up the mess or apologize or problem solve and ultimately move on, you're teaching your kids to do the same.
So what's your most embarrassing mom moment? How did you recover?
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