Very Boring Life

I must have a very boring life. I have such a hard time of think of stuff to blog about. Most of the time, this blog is more like my personal journal, but sometimes I wish that I had the talent to write about important social and political topics. I have to face facts though, I really don't care about most of the social and political topics enough to spend time ranting about them.

I would rather rant about my recent horrible experiences with two separate mothering groups.

Since I will soon be a mother, I want to connect with other mothers. I have been so wrapped up in finishing school (got an A for the last class BTW - ended up with a 3.829 GPA!! Go Me!!) that I have failed to cultivate many friendships with anyone let alone other mothers. So, I wanted to get involved and start making some connections. I want to make friends, I want to hear about how others are making ends meet financially, who likes what pediatrician and so on.

When I was growing up my mother was a La Lache League leader and I have fond memories of playing with the other kids and watching a room full of nursing mothers talking and laughing. So, I wanted to join the local LLL chapter and went to my first meeting on Monday. Yes, Monday, Labor Day.

First of all, the e-mail telling me about the meeting simply said that the meeting would be held at the hospital on the 13th floor - no room number or anything, just the 13th floor. When I arrived with Smug-Sister in tow (she would like to also be pregnant soon and I needed the moral support), the hospital information desk looked at me like I was speaking in tongues and mutely pointed to the bank of elevators - "Those will take you to the 13th floor." Upon arriving on the 13th floor, we found it completely deserted. We found the only conference room, but it was locked and dark - this about 10 minutes before the meeting was to begin.

We wandered down to the Labor and Delivery unit and asked the nurses who again looked at like we were insane and suggested the 12th floor, on which we repeated the same procedure. We ended up back at the locked conference room and I was trying to find the leaders phone number when she and other mother arrived. Since the conference room was locked, the leader spent another 10 minutes locating another room for us. Finally about 15 minutes after the meeting start time, we got settled.

Now, if I had been the leader, knowing that I had three brand new people, would have introduced LLL, had everyone introduce themselves, stuff like that. But there was none of that. She told us that she was just back from being out of town for the holiday weekend and was unprepared, so she wanted to just open the meeting up for discussion.

The new mother had an 11 week old baby and was in desperate need of support and help. The leader attempted to help where she could, but then that left Smug-Sister and I just staring at them. It was strange and uncomfortable to say the least.

I think that I will most certainly go to next months meeting. Being that this was a holiday and a leader that was not the normal leader of this group or time, I hope that I will be more impressed with the next meeting.

Then we move on to the Mothers and More Group. I had never heard of this group, but someone gave me a flier about them while I was in a restaurant one day reading my childbirth book. Anyway, their website for my local chapter stated that they have meetings every 2nd Tuesday. So I headed down there last night and I arrive to find the building dark and locked. I wanted until about 10 minutes after the start time of the meeting and then I called a phone number on the flier and sent an e-mail (the address also being on the flier). I simply asked if I had the wrong day or wrong location or what had happened.

I received a call back last night after I had turned my phone off (which I do, so my sleep will not be interrupted) from someone saying that they had had their big open house the previous week and were not able to do that and another meeting a week later. I actually knew about the open house thing, but it was held the same day and time as my last class, so I was not able to attend. There was nothing on their website about the open house causing a regular meeting to be skipped or anything.

This morning I received an e-mail stating much the same thing. Both were apologetic that I was left waiting and said that I should call/e-mail back to get more information about the group and the next meeting.

I think that I will still give them a chance, but there is something strange that I noticed in the e-mail. She was telling me about some of their activities and she said they had this, this and this, along with play dates and other activities where children were welcome. This strikes me as odd - does this mean that the "this, this and this" are NOT child friendly? How can you have a mothering group and not welcome the children?

I am not too worried about it at the moment, since my child accompanies me everywhere right now, but I am not sure that I want to be part of a group of mothers who use this as an escape from their kids. I am having this baby because I want to HAVE this baby. The last thing I want to do is have obligations that require me to leave my baby or child.

I see this a lot with certain mothers who complain about not getting enough "Me time" it's like they have forgotten that they had "me time" all throughout growing up, high school, college, their 20's whatever! Now, you are a mom/dad - now you have chosen to put someone else before yourself by having and keeping your child.

It is not a sacrifice to be around your kids, its a joy! Why did you have kids if you did not want to be around them, take care of them, do things with them?? I am not saying that by being a mother you should never want to do things without your children, but I can't imagine waiting SO long for this baby that I have wanted since I was 12 years old and then wanting to be away from her/him on a regular basis!!

I personally think that some people have children for the wrong reasons, or perhaps have them too young. They are not mature enough to understand the new role they have taken on. That is just my opinion and perhaps you will see me writing later about my burning need for "me time", but as it stands now, I don't want babysitters - hell, I am not sure that I will allow anyone else to hold my baby until she/he is at least 10 years old!! :)

Anyway, back to the mothering meetings. I was really frustrated by the whole experience. I felt like I dragged myself to make these meetings when I was tired and really needed to be home resting instead because it is important to me. I even refused to take home my leftovers in a doggy bag when I had dinner, because I knew that I wasn't going to be going home until late and they would not have lasted in the hot car.

I will give both groups another try next month, but if they fail me again....well.... I guess nothing :)