Mommies and snotty nosed kids.

Today was one of our days to get out of house. O had a runny nose and woke up grumpy so that set the mood for our whole day as we head to our second visit to the mother and toddler group.

 The group is held at St. Mary's primary school in Maghera. It's in a mobile classroom. Below is a picture of the front of the classroom. It's full of toys, a wee table, and little chairs all around, like a kindergarten classroom. It's a nice space, but they always have the heat cranked up to 1000 degrees. There are about 5-7 Irish mothers with a kid each, I would guess about 3 years old. There is also a small group of Polish mothers that can speak a wee bit of English and then there is me.

As many of you know I don't normally have a hard time making friends, well this is one of those times I feel I just can't make friends. Not only am I trying to keep O from stealing toys from the kids that are playing with them and then try to make small talk just doesn't work. Now, I've never been to a Mother/toddler group in American so I don't really have anything to compare it to, but they are NOT New England moms. I'm used to everything be sterilized to the death, no juice, no sweets, no cookies (biscuits) and defiantly no pancakes with loads of butter. Everything at the play group is completely opposite. All the kids get juice, (to note: one mom did say that it was the only times her son got juice) and pre-made pancakes with butter. Biscuits are then passed around after for the moms, but I think the kids eat more of them than we would. Talking to my father-in-law I guess a lot of kids here get loads of sweets. I'm making an assumption since I'm only an outsider. I'm dying to get my hands on a parenting magazine from the UK to see where it would differ from US ones.

One of the moms did talk to me (high-five) and so did the girl that runs the group for the school. Other than that no one else talked to me, even when I was prying O off the toy their kid was playing with. Now this is going to sound like a small pity party, but I feel the loneliest when I'm at the group. It makes me miss all my friends. I have no one to talk to about what has gone on in my week while I chase O around. It's swapping "war" stories with other mommies that I miss so much. Hopefully after a few visits I'll be able to talk to more people, especially when O is feeling better and not so crappy and grabby. I was hoping this was going to be a way to make friends in the area, but we'll see.  As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day.

oíche mhaith