One is the loneliest number

I wouldn't swap my life for anyone else's. I love my life. But having said that, I do find myself living vicariously through my friends a lot lately.

I don't know if it's because, while I have quite a few really good friends, I don't have a 'best friend' (at least not one in the same time zone as me). I miss having someone I can just 'shoot the shit' with, someone I can stop by and see at any time (and they can stop and see me without my worrying about how the house or I look), and not feel like an intruder when I do visit them. 

It's hard. My friends fall into three categories at the moment-
1) those who are close to my age and either have no children or children who are grown
2) those who are somewhat younger than me and have children
3) those who live so far away that unless I discover the secrets to wormholes I can only really talk to via FB, Skype or phone.

Don't get me wrong, I love all my friends - each of them helps keep me sane in different ways. But since having Little P, I've found that my invitations to come out and play are few and far between. Granted, I can't drop everything and go hang out like I used to, and having grown up fun does require a little planning these days, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like an invite. One gets very tired of hearing 'oh we would have invited you but we figured you would have said no'. Really? 

*sigh* My brother and I have discussed this phenomena at length (he too, went through what I call the 'leper' period) and I have come to a couple of conclusions. Those friends who know us really well, will invite us to 'most' things but not all, concerned that we would just feel bad for being invited but not able to attend (I call this the 'BS excuse', you just forgot to invite me, admit it). Those friends who have only known us with kids and just automatically assume that every minute of every day is devoted to the little ones and we couldn't possibly fit anything else in, so there's no point in inviting someone who wouldn't attend anyway (this is referred to as the 'dumb ass excuse' because you made an assumption and we all know what happens when you make assumptions). And my personal favorite the 'I don't do the baby/kid thing' excuse. I have yet to fully work out what this one means, but rest assured I will get to the bottom of it.

I guess, at the end of the day, all most of us want is to be thought of. And not in the past tense. We haven't died, we just had kids. That's it.

Okay, rant over. I now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

K

Mommy-ism #83: vicariously living through your friends FB status updates. Yup, it's sad but true. There comes a time with little ones, when your life is structured by their naps and meal times. You can't go out at certain times because you little one will get cranky if they don't have a nap at a certain time, or you can't go too far in case they have a melt down. So you resort to living your life through your friends. Fortunately, this also means that you don't have the hangovers, speeding tickets and jail time that they do. So I guess it's kind of a wash.