THIS IS WHY I DON'T DO THIS

I decided again this morning to go to a moms' group thing here in Napa. I see the events come up in the group calendar I signed up for, but usually I don't go for a whole host of reasons that are mostly "I don't want to."

Well, come on. I don't care who you are: it's hard to show up for a group thing when you don't know anyone. Plus, moms scare me.

At this point I figure Hey, if I'm doing everything wrong, I'd prefer not to know. I'm happy in my baby-bubble. Eve is healthy and happy and THAT'S IT. What else does there need to be? Yes, yes, I glance online and look at books when I have specific questions, but I STILL avoid them as much as possible because every time I open a page I am faced with something I'm not doing, something Eve isn't doing, something everyone in the whole world is doing that we're not doing and crap. I've probably already ruined her whole life.

For example, I picked up a book the other day because I was feeling like a mommy masochist, and wanted to know what fun activities I "should" be doing with Eve that I haven't been. I read that by this age, you can take the baby to the park and put her in the baby swing, as long as she can hold her head up and sit while assisted. And you know what? That made some sense to me.

So on Sunday, Ish and I took Eve to the park. We strolled on over to the playground, got Eve out of her stroller, put her in the swing, and gave her a gentle push. She was utterly confused. Actually, her expression was more, "What the FUCK are you DOING?" She didn't cry or scream or anything, she just had no idea why her parents had stuck her in such a contraption.

Meanwhile, Ish and I are beside ourselves, gasping and smiling and cheering at her as though she has done something truly amazing. Eve eventually gave in to her doofy parents and half-smiled at us, probably in the hopes that we'd stop embarrassing her in front of all the older boys. But after about three minutes, she'd had enough parent-appeasing and wanted OUT.

Three minutes.

I don't know what I was expecting, really. But there we were, holding her at the park, looking around like, "Um, so...is there anything else for her to DO here?"

The answer is no. No, there are NOT a lot of reasons to take an infant to the park. I mean, we tried to get her to "slide" down about two feet of slide (while being held, of course) and that was even dumber than putting her in a swing, and none of us enjoyed it even a little bit.

Apparently, the point of taking a baby to the park is so that you can walk around with a stroller watching children who aren't yours do stuff your kid can't. And while I'm sure that this is fun for some parents, it's really not my thing. Sure, it's possible that Eve really liked the fresh air, but she seemed mostly to enjoy gnawing on her giraffe and making funny faces at her daddy. Which is precisely what we were doing at home before I got the bright idea to read about all the reasons I should be leaving the house.

Anyway.

This morning I arrived at the group meeting and immediately found myself standing next to a mom of a two-month-old and a mom of a nine-month-old. We did introductions.

Mom of nine-month-old: Oh, and who is this?

Me: This is Eve.

Mo9mo: Aww. How old is she?

Me: She'll be six months tomorrow.

Mo9mo: Is she walking yet?

WE WERE STILL IN THE PARKING LOT.

No, Eve is not walking yet. She isn't crawling yet. She isn't sitting by herself yet. She doesn't like the baby swing at the park yet. She also isn't reading The New York Times or speaking Mandarin yet, either. Maybe by six-and-a-half months?

(The rest of the get-together was actually totally pleasant, and the mom who asked if Eve was walking yet was very nice. Of course, her nine-month-old IS walking, so I will just have to assume her question came out of mere curiosity. Or something like that.)