I remember coming home after a trip to the grocery store and telling my husband, “I need to work on my mommy pick-up lines.” One thing you notice fairly quickly after having your first child, you’re suddenly thrust into this position where, your child is loving this other kid and you have to ‘pick up’ another mommy. When my daughter turned 1yr old we moved to a new city. This is a primo park age and my daughter was/is soooo social that it forced me to come out of my cozy, anti-social shell and talk to all sorts of moms.

This can be good or bad. Moms are all kinds of people and just because your child is enjoying sandbox time with another kid doesn’t mean you and the mom are ready to run off into the sunset together. Perhaps because I’m not a conventional looking mom, there are tattoos and some other tell-tale signs that separate me from the Gap brigade of moms that march into the park with their strollers like they own the place. On the rare occasion that there was an approachable looking mom, whose kid my daughter was enjoying playing with, I would try and think of lines to throw out there, quite literally - “Come here often?” and other such cliches to attempt to weasel a second playdate out of someone. Sometimes there are takers and sometimes there’s just a lot of rejection. You say to yourself, ‘They don’t know what they’re missing…’ but it’s so irritating sometimes you just want to shout at the lame mom, “Look I could care less about you and I being pals I just need your kid to come and play with my kid every now & then alright?!”

I was worried about gathering a gaggle of kids for my daughter to play with so I made the mistake of joining a mommy group. Bad idea, I could tell right away these folks were not my cup-o-tea. They had that attitude that some people embrace, that sort of “Ugh, I’m over it.” sense you get from some parents, sure we all have our bad days but it seems like it becomes this infectious ‘tude that the moms adopt, “Honey go play by yourself, what are you 2yrs old? You don’t need me, I’m talking to Nancy about this fantastic mayonnaise recipe.” So I quickly opted out of the mommy group to forge friends for myself. A much better idea.

Once back to flying solo I just kept my eyes peeled and swallowed my fear. The good side of me finding my social butterfly within - I met Dr.Wilma, my daughter met her son and the rest of the story is a beautifully formed friendship for all (that involves much prancing off into sunsets). This is a rarity but one thing I have to note is that in my pre-mommy days, had I seen a cool looking chick like Wilma there would have been absolutely no reason to approach her, no reason to talk to her and zero reason to ask for contact info and a future ‘playdate’. The kid element actually gives you a reason, when you spot that cool mom, who’s got that awesome kid, to approach them and toss out your best mommy pick up line and hope that the recipient laughs knowingly then says, “Yeah, here’s my number, let’s do this again sometime.”