UGH! I must start by saying, I had a "great and wonderful" once in my life, so I can't say I haven't been blessed. However since our split (aka the move) it's just been hard to get back out there and date again. I speak to my x-mbf on the phone at least twice a week - mostly to bitch and complain about all things New York but also to find out what she's been up to. I would be lying if I told you it didn't make me just a little happy to hear she is also not ready to get "out there" and meet someone new. Dating is hard enough, mommy-dating when you throw in a third (or in truth a fourth, fifth and sometimes sixth) party makes it nearly impossible.
I will admit I acted a bit naive to the whole situation. It was just so easy last time, I thought for sure it would be the same. Actually, I knew it wouldn't be as easy but I had NO idea it would be this hard. My x-mbf reminds me it's a different time in our lives and she is right. Oh, how I miss the days of sitting around with a circle of moms in some one's living room sipping wine and nursing (YES you read that correctly and judge me all you want). It was simply talk of sleep schedules and pumping, when to start solids and when to let them "cry it out." It was an easy way to form a friendship and sure the conversations had their moments of being "just baby" but because you had the time to waste and the babies who simply fussed for two reasons, you could really break it down. All of us moms (nine in total) made our rounds to each other's house week after week after week. The host supplied lunch and a sufficient amount of wine which kept the conversation from never going stale. We were new moms, and while we all loved and adored our friends pre-baby - we had all just started a new chapter in our lives and we knew the nine women in that living room could relate best. We loved to talk about how our husbands had just started to seem so lazy and how we really did have super human strength when it came to carrying a stroller up six flights of stairs with baby in tow. We laughed at how we thought we needed eight hours of sleep every night to get through the day….funny, you really only need four. Everything was new back then and we were dating without really….dating. If anything, it was more like speed dating or four minute dating. You had nine solid girls to choose from and each one more interesting than the next. AND if worse came to worse you could simply go back to the main topic at hand….why does my child not sleep through the night?!
Of course as the kids got older the big group changed and us moms branched off to smaller groups. Some moms moved, others went back to work, some just weren't into the day to day hanging and others just preferred to do things on their own. In the end we ended up with a solid four of us who hung out every single day - obnoxious as it might have been to others, we loved every second of it. We vacationed together, had lunches together and of course, yoga'd together. We were known as the momterouge at the gym and where there was one of us, there was always the question, where are the other three? It was heaven wrapped up in watching our new and only babies discover each other and eventually form friendships and bonds they still have now. (I know they are only TWO and who still has friends from when they were toddler BUT let me live in the moment!)
Of course, like every perfect thing in this world - it had to end. What comes up, must come down and eventually two of the four moved and then so did I. Before I left though and when it was only down to the last two - my x-mbf (the remaining ONE) and I became inseparable. Our friends became friends, our husbands became friends and our kids went to the same school, we were both class parents, we…..OH you get the point. And the truth is we didn't force our kids to be friends, they love each other, act more like sisters than best friends but when they are apart, Finley can't wait to see….Stella. So it's Stella's mom who I call now and bitch to. It's Stella's mom who I am happy has also not moved on. And it's Stella's mom who told me "maybe, you're just not ready to get out there." How funny this sounds, right? Well, it is. We call our break-up a divorce, however I don't walk around like a bitter divorcee, although I am bitter. I walk around like a widow and please just go along with the dramatic here. If I had chosen the divorce or if the divorce had chosen me, then yes, bitter I would be. But this was stripped from me, taken from me and not with a moment's notice but a slow and painful death. We knew for months this was coming, we prepared, discussed, drank and eventually cried about the outcome. There was no turning back and we were going to have to leave each other and go and meet new moms. Only one…that's all I really need. See when you have it good…you know what you're missing.
So here I am, a new UES mom out to fight the good fight on the playgrounds that surround me. I have signed up for the classes - always fun meeting new nannies :-/ and I have tried to simply be available (mistake #7). I would hate to throw crazy generalizations out there about the UES moms that I have met as I'm sure moms across the city are like this (I so don't believe what I just wrote) but for sake of not offending everyone (sure) I'll just say NYC moms are tough but like my x-mbf reminds me (and she is always right) - they had lives before you moved here - so you have to find a way to fit into their lives, they don't need to find a way to fit into yours. Most moms who have a toddler also have a new little one or are expecting a new little one and so they are established. They too sat around nursing circles when their firstborns were just a few months old, forming friendships they knew would fill their 9-5pm work week. So, I'm the new kid on the block and with my two kids by my side, I must find a way in….I have to MOM-DATE! Let's meet for coffee, sure I'll come to your place, I would love it if your nanny called my nanny, Mahjong, UMM love that game (huh)? And so it begins and yes, I might not be ready but I'm trying. I definitely may have started too soon, hence my many failed attempts but with each passing day I find myself being less - the awkward guy in the prime real estate at the bar sipping a never-ending cocktail during happy hour by himself - and more the cute girl who just so happens to be thirsty and wanting a drink, and oh, look it's just around quitting time, so why not.
I would be remiss in not mentioning that I have actually met a few wonderful moms out there (love my weekend DT mom and my funny UWS mom). And while we are, of course, just "getting to know each other right now" there is definitely some serious potential. And while I can count these wonderful moms on one hand (needing only my index and middle…and maybe my ring finger) they are out there. I love the UWS mom who at our first mom-date thought a dance party would be a cute idea and while most moms would throw on some top 40, I watched Finley and her adorable son rock out to "I'm in the house….I'm in the mother-f*%^$# house!" I loved that date and lucky for me even after our last date, a HUGE disaster, she's willing to see me again. See here's the problem - moms can love each other and get along great but there's the other part of the equation….the kids. I have a spitfire for a daughter so while I'm trying to get to know the mom "hi, Oh yes I LOVE sushi…Oh, what is she doing? Oh God I'm sorry….strange, she never hits like this…" It makes this whole dating thing that much harder. On this particular disastrous mom date (aka playdate) Finley decided it would be cute to take sips of her water, squat her legs and pretend to pee. I still have no idea where or WHO she learned this from or if she really just put it together herself (always knew she was a genius ;-)...and while I tried to ignore it in hopes it would go away and at my failed attempt to take the water away (major temper tantrum), I looked over and saw that it was no longer water coming out of her mouth and she was actually squatting and peeing right through her clothes and underwear right on the sidewalk. "So, do you want to get together next week or shall I just, um call you?"
I have two UES moms (so as to not completely make them all out to be a-holes) who I really like. More for the sheer reason that one of them, I only get together with sans children and the other one is just, do I dare say….normal? We met, of course, in Frankie's class. Shocker. It's amazing how well you can get to know a mom when you have a non-speaking, roll around, smiling kid to look after. Lucky for me she also has a toddler and so in the words of eharmony, it's a perfect match. We are still in the beginning stages of this new dating thing and while we have only gotten together a few times, I'm just happy, I haven't gotten the book He's just not that into you sent to me in the mail.
To be honest, I haven't given up all hope - I probably did come out of the gate a little too fast and a little too aggressive. So I'm laying back and seeing what happens. I am not totally tainted…yet and I haven't taken myself off of all the dating websites but let's just say I don't obsessively check my inbox 34x a day. I coast the playgrounds, I sit back and observe at the sandbox and I smile and say just a few words at Fin's ballet class. I'm learning less is more and I'm starting to realize not everyone is into the neurotic, overly wordy, dramatic new mom on the UES.
MISS YOU MY X-MBF
xoxo
