I am a 5:30 mom. I pick up Laurel from her afterschool program at 5:30. I make eye contact and smile at the other parents who are doing the same pick up routine but rarely will I strike up a conversation. (Honestly this isn't my thing..I don't really like people--we will save that topic for later.) There is no time to do so and the other parents seem to have the same look that I have..frazzled from the traffic, rushing like a bat out of hell, perhaps picking up another child from a different location and thinking about what to make for dinner, etc.
Then one day I picked her up at 12:30. It was a special day of just Laurel and me, going to lunch and a little holiday shopping. When you get to the school, you have to wait outside until the children are dismissed. At 12:30, the teachers walk them to the door to meet their parents outside. So I get to the school and there are all sorts of moms there, "chatting" and being friendly. I was totally out of my element. There was one mom and small child that arrived on a tandem bike. Apparently her kindergartner is riding a bike home with her mom and sibling. My kid is riding in a car. The mom hands the sibling a nutritious snack of an apple as she waits. I have fruit snacks for my kid--full of sugar. Then the mom (who has this fishtail braid down to her ass--holy God, that needs to be cut) sits down and starts knitting. Are you kidding me? The conversation that I can hear between the moms is about advent calenders and knitted mittens. They were so relaxed and not at all frazzled looking. I was utterly alone..just me and my unspoken snark.
Laurel bursts out of the door, full of joy and extremely social with all of her peers. Regardless of age or classroom, she is talking to everyone. Sometimes I think she was switched at birth....
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