My older son is in 4^th grade.  This has given me plenty of time to work out the mom dynamics with his group.  There are moms I talk with, moms I don’t.  Or maybe I should clarify that as moms who put up with me and moms who don’t.

Anyways.

My younger son started kindergarten this year.  I figured since I’ve already been at this school for 5 years it was going to be easy the 2^nd time around.

Let’s go ahead and mark that “Wrong, Jen.”

My older son has had no problems playing with boys or girls right from the beginning.  That gave me a whole field advantage when hunting.

My younger son tends to play with just boys.  I’m no math genius, but that cuts the field by at least 1/3.

So there I am at drop off and pick up with other parents and I just want one of them to say “ME!  I’m your new friend!”

Weird?  Yes.  Effective?  Also yes.

Instead I stand there.  Hoping conversation can naturally start in some way.

Oh, and you want to hear pathetic?  Yesterday Pinterest came up and I threw out there that Martha Stewart followed me on Pinterest.

If that wasn’t a sad attempt at being relevant, I don’t know what is.

And you know what?  These relationships matter.

My kid will be in school with many of them for years to come.

His best friend could be in this group.

Hell, MY best friend could be in this group.

Maybe there’s a book on this sort of thing.

Like Mom Dating 101

Steps:

1)      Make sure your kids get along

2)      Set up play date at your house

3)      Have fabulous snacks and activities for them to do at play date

4)      Make their kid fall in love with you

5)      Make their mom wonder why they like going to your house so much

6)      Make their mom wonder so much that she asks you to go on coffee date

7)      Take shower

8)      Put on your best game face and be as funny as possible at coffee date.

9)      Send her home with a handcrafted best friends forever frame decoupaged in heart craft paper.

10)    Never hear from her again.

If I’m being completely honest, I suck at this.

But my son?  He’s like the captain of the social chair.   Three days into the year and he invited himself to a play date.  Thank god she let him go but maybe I shouldn’t have let him go?

Now is he known as “that kid who invites himself to play dates all the time and the mom didn’t even stop him?”

Being labeled as “that kid” or “that mom” this early in the game is not good.

So back to the play book I go.