Playgroup Parameters as Complicated as Starbucks Order

I’m meeting the members of our new playgroup tomorrow. It’s for Moms who are over 40, who have kids under 2, who can meet weekday mornings and want to do so without husbands. It reminds me of my Starbuck’s order before they invented “skinny” as part of their ordering process and before I quit going to Starbucks for budget reasons:

“I’ll take a venti sugar-free cinnamon dolce latte with skim and an extra shot of espresso, extra hot.”  I was on my cell with my brother one day when I placed that order and he said, “Just order a #%*^ing cup of coffee, for crying out loud.” Now that I see my playgroup parameters in writing, I feel like I should just make a few friends, for crying out loud.

But it’s not that easy. And I do have friends. I just don’t have MANY friends who are over 40 and who have toddlers. Most of my friends have moved on to other things. Many of them have returned to a more traditional work setting. Those who haven’t returned to work are golfing, lunching, gardening, etc. The women who are home with young children tend to be 20-somethings. I have nothing against 20-somethings — I just don’t want to hang out with them. They make me feel like I’m 40-something. Plus, as Busy Mom puts it so eloquently in this post, I’m a little past the stage of getting excited about my toddler’s first precious snowflake, so to speak. And I wouldn’t be very good at hiding that fact.

I thought I’d skip the whole playgroup thing this time around, especially after becoming friends with a wonderful neighbor who is home with two young girls and who is ALMOST 40. But said neighbor can probably only tolerate me popping in for coffee so many times a week before she tells me to get a life.  So, for my toddler’s socialization (okay, I admit it, for my socialization, too) I’ve decided to give it a try.

Kudos to Parents as Teachers, which helped connect all of us “over-40-playgroup-seeking-moms.” Someone at the Rockwood Parents as Teachers program realized the need for such a group, put together a brief questionnaire regarding our more specific interests, and then assigned us to a “customized group.” When I first filled out the questionnaire, I never suspected that there would be enough of us over-40s for more than one playgroup. But after all was said and done, these groups were formed: the 2 and under weekend group; the 3-year-old girl morning group; and the under 2 weekday morning group. It’s been funny, because lots of emails have been exchanged, reassigning this or that Mom/child, etc. But I’m really looking forward to meeting these women/children tomorrow.

Now, back to the second sentence of this post: It’s for Moms who are over 40, who have kids under 2, who can meet weekday mornings and want to do so without husbands -  which means there are men out there who want to do playgroup because that’s why the weekend group was formed. That sounds very hip and urban and young — not necessarily something I would’ve expected from the over 40 crowd, but cool just the same.