"You look a little scared"

About a million years ago, on one of my first days staying at home with an 8 month old Talker, we walked up to the neighborhood park. I thought the exercise would do me some good. Turned out the boy liked to snooze in the jogging stroller, so it was a good combination.

When I got up there, it was the scheduled time for a Mommy and Me playgroup. Most of the families lived in the neighborhood, but I did not know any of them. A few knew me as the guy who had big white dogs. But I was not being drug down the street by Bill and Ben. I was now holding a baby boy. And he was a lot cuter than their ugly babies. So they were jealous of that.

I got a varied reaction form the moms. Most of them just carried on with mommy playgroup stuff. A few mommas looked worried that I was in the park at 9:00 in the morning. One actually moved her son away from The Talker when I set him down to play. And one mom told me "You look a little scared", then she introduced herself and a couple of her friends. We made chit-chat about kids and the neighborhood.

The kids and I got in the habit of going up to the park at that same time each week. The moms that I knew made me feel OK about hanging out at the weekly hen party. When we were there I was usually chatting up the ladies that I met that first afternoon. It was a nice chance for the kids to play and for me to talk to other adults.

Flash forward to 2007. We are now out of the habit of going to the neighborhood park. Instead we tend to hit the YMCA , play at home or we hang with the Stay at Home Dad's group.

Monday afternoon was gorgeous. 75 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Take that Pittsburgh. So we headed to the park. In our t-shirts, shorts and sandals. Take that Long Island. Anyways, it seems that most of the neighborhood had the same idea. There must have been 45 kids at the park.

When I saw all of the cars at the park, I slipped back to five years ago. I was hoping that The Talker and The Princes would just be able to find someone to play with. After all of these years we were breaking into the secret mom's group again.

I looked up the hill and saw the same four ladies that I always hung out with. They were still chatting about the kids and the neighborhood. And the mom who had welcomed me almost 5 years did it once again. "You know, you still look a little scared." After that it was a very nice time. For The Talker, The Princess and the daddy.