Chatting It Up

Last night Luke and I attended an 'open gym' at a nearby park district. This was the second time we had come, the last time being last week. The 'gym' is used as a preschool during the day, so there are teeny tiny chairs, a small climbing structure, a giant bin of megablocks, little tykes kitchen setups, and shelves and shelves of toys.

I walked in with a sleepy Luke, since he had dozed on the way over, and as I was sitting down with him on the floor, a father sitting with his wife commented that he was cute. And thus began the inane litany of commentary and questions. When did Luke walk, is he a good eater, does he like to grab everything, does he put a lof of stuff in his mouth, how big was he when he was born, natural or c-section, do you have a basement, do you have a gate on the basement stairs... blah blah blah.

After about 15 minutes, his wife and I began exchanging actually useful information - their daughter was three - so we were talking about preschool, and which malls have play areas, where to go with little ones, and the guy lost complete interest and walked away to quiz other parents on their children.

When I was a child, my mother never seemed to be friends with my friend's parents, but she was friends with a couple of my brother's friend's parents. So there were quite a few times where I was shuffled along to play with 'the sibling', whether they were four years younger than me or in my class (and someone I didn't particularly like) or just someone that I didn't like, period. This always seemed to be a raw deal to me, why couldn't my mom just be friends with MY friend's parents??

Last night, Luke was very enamored with the little girl of the Crazy Question Asking Father. He watched her, he followed her. And for her part, she kept asking about the baby and giving him hugs. It was tremendously sweet.

And I am SO not hanging out with the Crazy Question Asking Father.