Blogging With Mommy

Archive for the ‘Friends’ Category

After much delay throughout the summer, this technomommy decided it was finally time to join her work at home friend for an outing with the kids. Being the mom that I am, I surfed the Internet and decided we should take the kids the Henry Ford museum. After all, another technomommy suggested it.

After a mishap with the bio-dad (remember we are a nontraditional family), my daughter was unable to come with us. So much for my afternoon off playing hooky with my two kids – can I stress the number two? My three-year-old son and I head off to pick up his three-year-old girlfriend, her two older brothers, one of their friends, and my girlfriend and fellow mommy. We head down to Dearborn, Michigan for our little adventure. Misadventure I should say as all did not go as I had planned or hoped.

The museum that was supposed to be “perfect for kids” was a huge let down to the older boys. My son and his honey were just happy to be together and hang with their mommies. After a few hours of battling pent up boy energy, we call it quits. While the museum was cool, it was designed for a retired car dude and not a seven-year-old boy.

My girlfriend takes it all in stride and we head north to her house for ice cream and some outside playtime. She admits she didn’t think it was a good idea, but went with me anyway because I wanted to go. I had to remind her that technomommies are clueless and to please speak up when I am headed off a cliff as I was today.

Thankfully my girlfriend loves me no matter how out of it I am when it comes to play dates. Obviously, I have other attributes that are worthy of friendship. I am still looking for these, but I am confident I will find them eventually.

I grew up as someone who did not like to be touched, hugged, or even have their personal space encroached upon. My friend Jen changed this and did so in a patient subtle manner. When I say subtle, I mean over ten years.

I actually did not even notice it had occurred until just recently. This summer I returned to my hometown of Grayling, Michigan for a funeral and a twenty-year class reunion. At both events people commented about this noticeable change. At the funeral my beloved sister looked at me and asked how and when did it occur. I told her I could attribute the change to my friend Jen, her patience, and her continued effort to broaden my horizons. At my reunion a classmate walked up to my husband and asked him how the transformation can be pass. He laughed and said a girlfriend desensitized me. He shared this with me on our way home and when I thought about the event, I realized I voluntarily walked up to everyone I spoke with and proactively hugged each and every one of them. I would not have done that is a million years back in school.

So the moral of my story is that you too can be a hugger. While I would typically say a leopard cannot change his spots, I will say he can learn to hug freely. If needed, I can have Jen write a guest blog where she teaches the proper techniques for changing a girlfriend’s faults overtime. She is, after all, rather good at it.