It Takes a Village

It takes a village to raise a child, so they say. Maybe not a village, but an extra set of hands certainly helps. As does 15 minutes of toddler planning.  I try to plan for every day to have an adventure. If we don't, RJ and I are not speaking by the end of the day. Actually, he's still talking ("Moooommmmyyyyy, I waaannnaa [fill in the blank]").  My child has been vaccinated with the talking needle. So, we have a daily adventure. A couple of days ago, our adventure was Target. I don't claim that our adventures are all educational or even productive. The point is to get the three year old out of the house and talking about something other than wanting to play cars.

At Target, we looked at baby bottles and baby monitors. I'm toying with the idea of a video monitor for GiGi's room. She's a different kind of cat. She prefers her crib, and I'm certainly not one to argue with her. For now anyway. When she's 13 I'm sure I will be one to argue with her.

Given the recent seismic activity, however, I chickened out. I need to sleep in the room with my babies. Call me crazy, but I thought that putting up with tornadoes, blizzards, bone chilling winds, and floods entitled me to a floor that doesn't shimmy and shake like Dance Fever. I guess I was wrong.

I digress. On our adventure, we visited the linens and talked about table settings. My son may be a decorator someday. The point is, we went all over the store. Clear to the back and to the front again. While picking up bread on the first aisle, a lovely mommy with three children in her cart stopped me. (I wanted to take her out for coffee to ask the question, "How do you do it? I mean really, three! How do you do it and still have on makeup and matching clothes?!")

"Excuse me," she said, "You have a lollipop stuck on your pants." She was polite. There was a sucker stick on my boom-boom. And it had been there through the baby department, the linens, the shoes, and the groceries. It was red. Of course. And very sticky. Obviously. (The pound of lollipop bribes in the trunk of my car had finally come back to bite me.) Only another mommy had the kind heart to actually tell me rather than giggle.

And with that, I realized that while I may have joined the village of lawyers when I passed the bar, I am also part of another village: mommies. Mommies unite. We look out for each other. I pick up lost baby socks and pacifiers for strangers. I commiserate over potty training--which may be subject of an entire book someday if RJ ever learns to poop in the potty. As I embark on month two of maternity leave, I am realizing that it may take a village to raise a child, but the real truth is that it takes a village to raise a mommy.