Dating for moms

My sister showed me this post about how making friends as a mom is a lot like dating. She breaks it down into the different "bases of mom dating." I straight snort laughed several times throughout the post! Here are a few of my favorite lines:

I go too deep too soon, which scares off a mom just asking how many kids do I have.  ”Do you mean in my home, or in orphanages around the world?  Here locally, or in a village in Uganda?  Have you ever considered sponsoring a child?  Wait, where are you going?  Wanna hear about malaria and deworming?”

Overly-intense eye contact.  Never use while discussing homeschooling, gluten, gun control, breastfeeding, marriage, red dye number 40, infertility, or Jesus.  I may have left a few things out.  If there’s a subject that might cause you to stop blinking and/or breathing, save it for fourth base and don’t unleash it at the park.

Third base is a play date at one of our houses.  This is a tricky base because your kids are now on home court and your new friend is going to see your daughter body slam her toddler to the ground and take back the toy that he just picked up.
-Have I told you about the time when we had people over to our house a few weeks ago and J chucked her sippy cup right into their daughters forehead leaving a nice goose-egg. So there's that. 

By third base, I’m full frontal hugging, so prepare for that.  If you’re my third base friend, get ready for our boobs smashed up together while I ask how you’re doing right in your ear.  If you answer that with any kind of trauma, I’m a-gonna pull it right back together for another mash up, breathe some words of encouragement into your ear, then pull back for some heavy eye contact.  (Upon reading this, my husband informed me, “Who are you kidding?  You’re easy.  You go for full frontal hugging on first base.”  So I’m a hug-slut.  Bring it in, ladies.  I’m ready.
-Joree here, just re-reading this made me go into a snort-laugh-fit (I think I may TM that one, SLF?...go with it). It's especially funny because I'm not a big hugger, but I think I secretly want to be? I think this is a product of being one of the younger children in the family. My parents were soft by the time it got to my younger brother and I. Hugging. Lots and lots of hugging at our house. J will in fact be the weirdest child wherever she goes because even mentioning the word "sorry" around her makes her slobber kiss the closest persons face off. Embrace the awkward! One last one regarding 'Fourth Base'...

Feel free to bust out your full-blown honk laugh, talk about how soy gives you diarrhea, and how you worry that you’re a crappy mom.  You’ve found your person.  She loves you for you.

This was so timely because today J and I went to the library for the reading time they have there. Except, I'm a lame mom and didn't realize that the reading time was no longer going on. Whoops! Anyways, we went to play with the puzzles they have up in their children's section and I saw another mom I had seen at story time. She sat down at the table with J and I, and I shocked myself by openly asking about herself and her cute little boy. And then, it happened. My awkwardness could only be tamed for so long. I was lost in thought debating what I wanted to ask her next, so lost that I just stopped talking and didn't ask her any follow-ups on her recent home birth experience. Eventually, her little boy got restless and they just left. So. Weird. Bahaha, sometimes I just have to laugh at the awkwardness. One thing is certain, the awkwardness will always be here. Now, if I could only learn how to tame it for extended periods of time!

7 Days of Easter: Day 5 Friendship, Perfect Law of Love

By now you can probably figure that I stuck to John this year. Since I got this idea the day that I was going to start it, I didn't have a whole lot of time to dive into it as much as I will want to in the future. Day 5 was all about, what the scriptures call, the "Perfect Law of Love." With all that has been going on in my life lately (here), whenever I see the words 'friend' or 'friendship' in the scriptures, I pay closer attention. At the end of the day, the best example of how to be the best friend possible can be found within the example Jesus Christ set for us. For this day, read John 15: 9-15.

J is a singer! She loves to sing and dance. I love it because it is a nice glimps into her growing personality when she does. For this day, we would sing different songs about being a friend or songs that help us see the love that Christ has for us. Here are a few examples of songs we sing in our house.

Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam
Love One Another
My Heavenly Father Loves Me
I Feel My Savior's Love
I Know My Father Lives
I'll Walk with You

Any other songs you'd add to the list? Obviously, my scope is based within the LDS church. None LDS friends, are there any from your faith, or those that you just know, that help you or your kids better understand the love that Christ has for us?

I'm acca-awkward

I just need to give a big shout out to the good ole' Midwest! This has honestly been the friendliest place we have every moved to. Already, I have been invited to the library twice for a toddlers reading group, J and I were invited to an Easter Egg Hunt, was invited to a craft group (couldn't go, but the offer was still extended), we've been invited over for dinner twice, and just last night I was invited to a girl's night for Saturday! None of that has ever happened anywhere else we have lived. I am feeling really blessed right now.

She was a little overwhelmed...

But she eventually got the hang of it! She was all in once she figured out there was candy inside the eggs!

I'm the type of person that likes details. I like to picture how an event will go and sort of prepare myself for it. For example, when K and I were dating, he would tell me what restaurant we'd be going to and my roommates and I would look up the menu. (Please don't stop being my friend because of this!) While I admit, that's a bit extreme, I just like to know what to expect about situations. I'm also extremely indecisive, so it's better for everyone around me if I prepare. 

Last night when I got the text inviting me to the Girl's Night, I felt like a creep. I accepted the invitation and then proceeded to ask all the details...where is the restaurant, what time should I meet you, etc. When I type out the questions right there it doesn't seem so awkward, but last night it really did. In the past, this is something I might dwell on and be very embarrassed about. While it is still very fresh, I've decided to not let myself over analyze these situations. If it bothers people that I like to know details, then this is a good time to figure out that we aren't very compatible as friends. 

In short, I'm just going to let my 'Freak Flag' fly and if people aren't down with that, that's okay! I think a major part of my self-discover is just accepting who I am and being okay with it! It's okay if not everyone wants to be my best friend. 

Are you a details person? A planner?

Do you over analyze situations? How do you get over it?

I'll be honest, sometimes I have to pray to let it go haha. I'm better now, but it used to just eat me up when I did something stupid.

Be a "Girls' Girl"

The other day I was reading some celebrity gossip column (no shame in admitting a little interest in pop culture). This lady was saying how she didn't like Angelina Jolie because she wasn't a "girls' girl" and this individual was all about "girls' girls." That comment really stood out and stuck with me.

Growing up I always had way more guys as friends than I did girls. I contribute a lot of that to the fact that my major interests all revolved around sports, my greatest childhood friend was my younger brother, and I was just never that into the drama that was usually associated with girls. The girlfriends I did have, I realize now, I wasn't always a very good friend to. I was always so hypersensitive about everything they did or didn't do to/for me. I had one guy friend that would describe me as "very chill," but I doubt any of my girlfriends would say the same. While I was fiercely loyal, I always just wanted one very best friend, and I could careless about anyone else. 

 

This attribute was fine growing up, and even in my first year of college when I continued my habits. However, this tendency began to really backfire on me when the guy friends I had left on their LDS missions the next year, and the girlfriends I did have, all got boyfriends. 

 I was so lonely. I prayed and prayed that God would send me a friend. He sent me K. While K and I dated and into our first few years of marriage, I only noticed my lack of girlfriends occassionally. We were totally that annoying married couple that just hung out with each other. If we did hang out with others, it was always K's friends that he had had since high school. Yet again, I found myself the only girl in the situation and sticking to my old habits of only one good friend.

A. Lot. Of. Selfies. haha, that should have been a sign!

As I started my teaching career, I made a few girlfriends that also taught at my school. In retrospect, they created the friendship more than I did. It was a combination of lack of effort and just getting used to not having a ton of friends. I wasn't some hermit. I talked to people at work and church, and I had K when I wasn't at either of those two places. Even still, not a lot of people to feel a feminine bond with. I began to really see how disastrous these habits were when I became a mom. You NEED other woman who can relate and understand the struggles you go through as a woman and mother (the recovery after childbirth? Why doesn't society talk about that more--I felt blindsided!). There are so many things that men just don't understand. I realized that, while I might not have always been a "girls' girl" in the past, motherhood had thrown me into that category--and I was quite happy and relieved to be there.

As we've moved to Chicago, I'm finding myself in an all too familiar 'girlfriendless' territory. The beauty of this situation, however, is that I have a real chance to turn my circumstances around. I really could have always turned my circumstances around, it just would have been a lot harder and taken a lot more effort. I'm determined to not let this opportunity slip me by. We've been so blessed to have had a lot of people be so open and friendly to us already. (Side note: people that aren't LDS, how on earth do you meet new people when you move into town? Especially if you have kids, so it's not like you're going to the bars or anything every night.) 

This was such an important part in my self-discovery. I acknowledge the mistakes I've made with friendships in the past. I hope, as I cultivate new friendships here in Chicago, that I can be relaxed--anything anyone does for me is a bonus. In the past, I always had such ridiculous expectations for my friends to live up to. It took me getting married to start to realize that I can't expect people to read my mind. 

Who you will be friends with is always a mystery, so I need to give everyone a fair chance. In the past (so painful to admit this, but remember, I'm here to be real), I was so eager to get to the deep ties that bind friendships together that I thought I could weed out people based on comments made in large group settings, clothes they wore, amount of make-up applied, etc. It's not that I'm shallow and hold these aspects in high regard, I just figured it was a way to fast track the process. 

Finally, it's so important to have friends. In the really dark moments when my friends all had boyfriends and I felt really alone, I thought that it didn't matter. I didn't need close friends and could get by with just boyfriends or aquantances. That is so not the case! I can go the gym by myself, but it was so much more fun when I went with my sister, in Seattle. It's not that we always talked a lot while we were there or did the exact same workouts--it was about the companionship. I realize now that you need a variety of friends that can enrich your life in different ways. Going about life alone can be easier at times, but it's so not worth it. Friendship and companionship are worth the trouble!

When I've talked about this in the past, with other women, they always say "me too!" What the heck is wrong with us? Why do woman do this to ourselves?

What do you feel is your greatest attribute as a friend (this is your moment to brag, let it out)? What is something you want to work on as a friend?

Girls' Girl vs. Guys Girls...thoughts?

Anything else you want to say about it!