I was urged to blog about this, I wasn't sure if it was a desperate 'please tell the world about some of these people' plea. Either way I will, in my one style, just describe what has happened to me for the last few hours.
I got there late, which was a tactical plan. Saw a few familiar faces and made a beeline and plonked down Evelyn, and in a kind of begging tone asked if Rufus would like to go and play with the toys. He was pretty sure that he didn't want to, luckily there other outlets (mostly the cafe there that sold sweets and other refreshments) so I was able to shake him off fairly easily. Because that is what these groups are about....right? At first I sat in a quieter area and was happy with the level of mingling. I could sit from this vantage point and observe the crowd. However, quite without warning, I suddenly found myself in the thick of it as all the Mum's came and sat in the same area. This was it.
Here, I found all the usual competitive Mum chat, the verbal competitions of baby weight, progressions, the birth stories. I wasn't privy to the fully fledged birth stories where all women nearly die, but an insinuation of catastrophe. See it always very difficult to judge my facial expressions in any normal circumstance, i find in these situations it best to go for totally neutral (also i am never sure if they are being actually serious, or if they just had to do without any drugs and thought that they were dieing) There was also a lot of breaking voices as the word 'SHARE, PLEEEEEASE' was reiterated a dozen times every two minutes.
Amusingly, the whole group warmed to Rufus immediately. Now let me tell you he is definitely ready to go to pre school (in a couple of weeks hurrah!) and has been nothing short of a nightmare about 70% of the time at the moment at home. There were musings of 'oh what a sweet boy', 'look at how good he is' as he diligently handed out toys to the other children. I refrained from rolling my eyes. What they failed to work out was that he was doing this so that he kept the fire engine that he wanted to play with!
There was the Mum who tried to strike up weird chat with me specifically about the consistency of her breastmilk? From all accounts, she must have actually sampled it to have known in such detail the taste and consistency of it. I started to visibly try and stop the conversation when she asked how mine had been each time. She was the one who got it out of me that I had three children. Something which seemed to cause a bit of outrage to the whole group it seems? Did I plan it? Did I want that? How did it happen? (Quite personally)....was I breastfeeding still....and then, had my periods come back? How on earth did I cope? What do I do with them? And will I miss them when they all go to school? I was fairly blasé about the situation. I horrified them further that really the transition from having one child to two children is the worst (this was pretty much all of their situations at present) They all jumped on board, who is this new woman, she has three children? Look at her, she is still functioning (within reason). I do hope that I wasn't the weirdo in this group.
Sadly there was no mum wankers, I mean there was one who unbeknownst to her actually struck a huge resemblance to a mum wanker I unfortunately know. She wasn't all that normal though as persisted in her observation of how heavy Rufus was. I mean what do you say in response......I find it best to just look straight back and wait for their awkwardness in the situation to change the subject.
Women are a funny breed, especially when in mass!
Anyway, that was it. My morning. I am exhausted! I got home to find that Rufus had managed to literally shoplift a toy guitar in his back pack. So I guess that means I will have to return.....Now can i just do what Evelyn is doing!!
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