Mom’s Night Out

Last week was a first for me: Mom’s Night Out at the Nail Salon. It felt strange, spending “free” time with a bunch of moms, but it also felt good. After all, none of my pre-Matteo friends have kids, so there have been times that I feel like I’m floating in a lifeboat on the side of the cruise ship while my CFF friends are partying it up on board.

I met ten other moms at one of those strip mall nail salons where the white women are getting pampered by the vietnamese men and women who work there. When I first moved to California nine years ago, that environment kind of bothered me. But anymore it’s just part of the landscape, so I walked in with my wine and snacks and took a seat in the bad ass massage chair, handed my color of choice to the man sitting at my feet, picked up my glass of wine in one hand and People magazine in the other and starting reading about Kate Gosslein of Jon and Kate + 8. WHAT? DID I JUST SAY THAT?

Yes, I did. I chatted and caught up on celebrity gossip and didn’t have to hear children or husbands or parents or anything. I loved it, and you know what? I loved hanging out with other moms without their kids around. It’s funny, I didn’t think I had very much in common with a lot of these women, but without our kids around we were actually able to get to know each other as individuals. What a concept.

After we all got manicures and pedicures, we went over to one of the mom’s house for more wine drinking and sitting around the fire pit. We talked about our kids a little bit, but mostly we talked about the experience of motherhood, our husbands, our lives “before kids”, books we’ve read, places we’ve traveled to, etc.  We even stayed out until midnight - something I NEVER expected doing with other moms!  It was a great time, and what made it even greater was that it was a surprise.  I got to know these women as Suzi, Bobbi, Erin, Tricia and Sonya instead of their previous identities of Nicolas’ Mom, Landon’s Mom, Kiley’s Mom, and so on.

For the first time I think I understand more about where Barb is coming from in describing the difference in our visits when Matteo’s around.  I always knew it was different, after all there’s another person there, but I never really EXPERIENCED it quite like I did with Mom’s Night Out.

And for me to understand more about where Barb is coming is saying something, considering most times I seriously think we live in completely different galaxies.