plate o' shrimp

Several times recently, just when I am thinking a lot about something, I read someone's blog post on the same topic. My life is colliding with other people's blogs.

(1) She may SUC but her son was pretty cute

I think I met Bridgermama's SUC mom. I was early for Book Babies, so Ada and I were hanging out reading board books on the floor of the library's kids section. This woman plopped down next to us with her (admittedly very cute) boy. Ada loves looking at other babies, so that was cool, but then the third degree began. It was just as Bridgermama described it - the direct questions posed in an aggressively intrusive manner. How old is Ada, how big, what skills does she possess . . . Luckily we were interrupted before the chest-thumping could begin. (Ok, so the mutual grooming was nice.)

(2) Well, there was that month of "It's getting hot in here. . ."

Child's Play x2 posted on The Blogfathers about songs that get stuck in your head. He thinks he's got troubles. At least he's singing inane grown-up songs. For days I have had the following baby-ditty stuck in my head:

Everybody knows I love my toes,
Everybody knows I love my toes . . .
I love my eyes,
and my ears,
my mouth and my nose.
But everybody knows I love my toes.

This little gem was so firmly wedged in my brain that Saturday, even after 5.5 miles of skiing straight up Mt. Hood (gasp, wheeze, phoo-ee, snort), the whole way down I sang it aloud to myself. I'm lucky I cross-country ski. We had the trail all to ourselves, so no one else was infected by this horror.

(3) No, not jealous. Derisive and condescending, sure, but not jealous.

Mama M wrote about a Baby Talk article on mothers feeling envious of other moms. Although I admit to the occasional "how does she do all that?" twinge, like Mama M I am mostly pretty happy with my momself. In fact, rather than feel much mom-envy, I find myself perversely curious about the lives of people who have made very different choices from my own.

Such anthropological leanings took the girl and me out to the 'burbs last week for a play group. I know the host a bit and am fascinated by her strangeness in my world. I admit it, I was dying to see her house, to see how she lived. Why did I feel the need to see all this? Why do I feel smug and superior? Not my prettiest side, I know. This is a perfectly nice woman who obviously loves and takes good care of her child. I don't get this way around most people, but somehow when I am faced with women with whom (despite our mutual fruitless efforts to "connect") I share nothing more than the fact that we gave birth around the same time, I get ugly. I think maybe my foolish disappointment that meeting people who are in my same general situation doesn't guarantee shared experience or interests makes me extra snarky. I'm ok with being a touch misanthropic, but I should probably try to be a bit less judgmental about people who have chosen lives so different from my own.