Compartment 14B

Counting my blessings. 2006-10-27 - 10:56 p.m. Yesterday Grommet and I went to the drop-in playgroup for those-that-cannot-yet-locomote at the local community center. Psychologists say that women bond through sharing of stories, particularly those charged with emotion. Misery, as they say, loves company. Thus I found myself with a clump of women all making declarations about how they�ve dropped their children and how bad they feel about it. They commiserated with each other on how tired they were, how they�d cried daily for x number of weeks after giving birth (x often equal to about 6 apparently), and how their husbands didn�t help or understand them. Each recognized themselves in the others� stories about passive-aggressively letting their children cry and fuss just a little bit more than necessary in the night, or closing doors loudly on their way to soothe said children, ostensibly to avoid their husbands being woken up, but secretly hoping that that would be the exact result. I kept my mouth shut. While I would love to have more mom friends, I knew that declaring that I got lots of rest in the early days after getting home, or that I remember crying only once during the first two weeks of the Grom�s life (and that was �cause I hadn�t yet got the hang of breastfeeding so my boobs were hurting, yet I knew I had to let her feed from them, painful as it was), or that my husband gets home early enough in the day to uncomplainingly take the baby for awhile or help clean up around the house, or that I didn�t resent doing all the night stuff even a little bit. would earn me no points at all. In fact, I feared being shunned. I guess I kind of knew how good I have it, and that I�m very, very fortunate to have a wonderful supportive husband and a relatively easy baby, but I don�t think I knew just how good until I heard the resentment bubbling out of these women, who all seem to live with the clich�s of the husbands thinking they don�t do anything all day, yet on the rare occasions they�re at home with their offspring they are completely helpless. I even heard one woman quote herself as saying, �There�s the fridge; learn how to use it.� when her husband couldn�t feed himself when left to his own devices. Are these women all married to Tim Allen? What�s going on? I am so, so, SO lucky! Before - After All content � Shawna 2003-2010 That means no swiping my stuff - text, images, etc. - without asking. P.S. If you're emailing me, replace the [at] with @ in the "to" line. Oh, and if you put the word "journal" in the subject line it'll have a better chance of making it past my junk mail filters. recommend me HTML and design help by Jo hosted by Diaryland