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Mom Diary

 As a party hostess, I'm pretty shitty. I know this. I can't be bothered with Paperless Post. Also, envisioning a playdate for my daughter and friends, I become ill at the thought of board games. I see the pieces--in my mind's eye. They're scattered on the lawn, they're floating in a puddle, they're sunken within the innards of my yellow lab.


I Google "toddler playdate," and the easiest option seems to be filling a roasting pan with water, then sticking it on the floor. You flood the pan with cups, sifters, spoons, bowls, plastic tumblers. Stick the kids in front of the tumblers.....Fun for hours.

My main transgression seems to involve "Elsa yogurt." If you order this yogurt online, three of the six cups will feature Elsa. (The others, featuring Olaf, will be hated, rejected.) I think I'm scoring points by offering Elsa yogurt to my daughter's guest--but the neighbor mom throws silent daggers at my chest. "Thanks," she says, dryly. "Before today....my kid didn't know that Elsa yogurt exists. So....this is a new thing for me to store in my brain when I'm shopping."

On one level, I'm pleased that my daughter forces me into these new situations--makes me grow up. But, also, I can't help but think of Stephen Sondheim:

You're sorry--grateful.
Regretful--happy.
Why look for answers where none occur?
You'll always be what you always were.
Which has nothing to do with--all to do with--her.

The water table is briefly exciting--then it's not. The party becomes what we all anticipated--an opportunity to wear "Belle" and "Aurora" gowns. Minor fights break out. Which of two Elsa gowns is available for a loan? Is the loan site-specific--or can it travel out the door for a full weekend? Can it spend several days in another part of town?

We all survive. My daughter thanks me in her own way--that is to say, she requests several more playdates and a sleepover. When I ask if she would miss her mom at the sleepover, she seems puzzled. "Silly," she says. "You would be sleeping there at my friend's house--next to me."

I laugh--in a nervous, evasive way--and I change the subject. It's time to fold the gowns.
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