Are dads allowed?

It is nothing short of amazing what a good night's sleep will do to improve things. I went to bed early last night, Bean didn't wake up even once, and I got to sleep a full 9 hours. 9 hours of unfettered sleep! I woke up with my cheeks all pink again and a most excellent ebullient, let-it-slide mood. I forget that deep down I'm the same person I always was whenever I'm well-rested. I even have a sex drive again! Love that.

I got out of the house today, too, though it wasn't to work in the yard. I took Bean to a so-called children's museum in downtown Chapel Hill. It's basically an indoor play place with themes which, of course, doesn't have quite the ring of "museum." The exhibit--or whatever--going on just now was Mister Rogers' neighborhood which frankly wasn't much of a draw. I don't know about the rest of you 70's-era babies, but I thought Mister Rogers was at best boring and at worst creepy. Those puppets? King Friday and Queen Sarah Saturday with god-knows-whose grown-up voice doing weird falsetto behind the curtain? Turn it off, Mama!

But anyways, I took Bean there and she had a blast playing with the plastic sushi in the pretend kitchen--'cause in Chapel Hill we're all ethnic and shit--and trying on fancy capes in the dress-up clothing trunk. So Bean ran around, trashing a space I didn't have to worry about cleaning up while I got to have a real conversation with another parent. But get this--the other grown-up was a dad.

Shocking, I know. No, really. I admit that it's hard for me to get used to there being male stay-at-home parents these days, though I see quite a lot of SAHD's around town. There are even some dad members of the big mothers' club that I joined last year. One of those poor guys asked to join our playgroup a few months back, which I thought would be fine. The other moms weren't o.k. with it because I guess they felt like they might want to talk about tampons or something at some point. One of the moms emailed him back to say that our group was full, but thanks anyway and good luck. They weren't even able to articulate why they didn't want a dad to join us.

I scoff at the other moms in my playgroup, but upon introspection I am no better at all. Honestly, my first reaction today when this guy started talking to me was to turn on my radar to try to detect whether he was hitting on me or not. Even knowing that his twin boys were right there with him and that was the real reason he was there. And yes, even with him mentioning his wife a few times, which I'm pretty sure was his way of letting me know that he wasn't hitting on me. We talked about another local mothers' group that he had joined earlier in the week, which had just kicked him out yesterday, also via polite email. (They were more frank about it at least and told him that after lots of discussion, their female members felt that a man around would impede on the kind of dishing they wanted to be able to do.) But when he asked for my email address later so that we could get our kids together--who are indeed the same age--my immediate thought was, "Is this guy a serial murderer who's going to track me down and stalk me? Is he actually these boys' psycho babysitter and not their dad at all?"

I'm so lame. I think of myself as so enlightened and o.k. with the notion of fathers having equal responsibility for childcare and blah blah blah, but when faced with an actual dad who might want to get our kids together or even start the area's first real, co-ed parents' group I get nervous. I didn't get a single weirdo, creepy vibe from him and still.

(Hey, who noticed that I did not once use the phrase "male member" when discussing men in mothers' clubs? Yeah, that was on purpose.)

Brownie bitching

Ugh. Slogging through formatting yet another list of volunteer "opportunities" to hand out to parents at tomorrow's Brownie meeting. Did I complain last year about what a crap job it was to be the cookie mom of Sister's Brownie troop and be stuck with trying to make other supposed grown-ups meet deadlines? Did I say how much other parents sucked for making me nag them about giving me troop money on time and then getting mad and pissy with me for nagging them? Did I ever complain about how much it sucked to be PAID to hassle people back when I used to manage a bakery with a dozen bakers on staff? I take it all back. Being cookie mom was just for 2 months. Being a bakery manager actually paid pretty well. Being a Brownie troop leader is for most of the year and you do it for free.

What's REALLY a crap job is having to hassle parents every month to please do something to contribute to their daughter's Brownie troop. Please just say you'll bring a box of granola bars or a bag of apples for the girls to snack on. Please sign up to help with the single meeting you're required to help with. C'mon. We tell you about this at the beginning of the year. Your daughters love love love it when you come. Please send money on time so that we can buy event tickets on time so that we can actually attend the events that your girls voted to attend. Please help drive all these girls to the events. I know they're usually on Saturdays. Did you know that it's Saturday for me, too? Do you realize I'm not your free babysitter? Did you know you're making it so that I really don't want to do this anymore?

Say it with me now--what the hell was I thinking? Again?