an afternoon in the park

I left work early on Thursday. Vernal was feeling pretty sick, so I came home to take care of the boys so she could sleep. The easiest way for her to get good sleep was for me to take the boys out of the house. Or as Goose puts it, “I wanna go somewhere else.”

A block east and a few blocks south from our house is Porter Park, one of Gooses favorite parks in Prairie Village. He calls it the Green Park, because the playground equipment is green. Anyway, he wanted to go to the Green Park because it has a huge sandbox. We packed his bright yellow Tonka dump truck and tricycle in the trunk and I packed Goose and Turkey in their seats and off we went.

The day was gorgeous, in the 70’s. I was feeling a little lucky to be out of the office and soaking up the autumn weather. I assumed that since it was 1:30 in the afternoon that the kids would be in school and that the park would be near empty. Boy was I wrong! As we got near the park, I noticed how full the sandbox looked. And this is where I discovered a whole new world.

So this is the world of Stay-At-Home Moms. Why did I feel so out of place? Oh, maybe it was because I was the only adult male at the park. The moms kept on coming. You could see the double-wide sports strollers about a half mile out as they made their ascent on the park.

Being that this was Prairie Village (and not that it only happens in PV, but this is one of those trendy neighborhoods where young families move to for great neighborhood parks and cute homes), I picked up on the Desperate Housewification of American mothers. Most of the moms were dolled up. I am talking like fancy sweat-suits with the perfect hair and make-up. I have nothing against looking your best in public, but this seemed to be an attempt to say “you know that show desperate housewives, they practically based the characters off of me. Don’t I look good?” Now, they would never say that, but that is what they want you to think.

Every mother there knew at least one of the other mothers there. I heard some funny conversations from the basic “let’s talk about kid stuff” to “how was last night’s Pampered Chef party?” (Side note: This is one of the benefits of the non-relational male conversation, we forget about the kids, wife, family, and jump straight into discussing the proper order of reading the Chronicles of Narnia.)

Anyway, I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the conversation about the Pampered Chef party. I always assumed they were boring, and you felt like you had to/or were forced to buy something. Vernal seems to always dread these sort of events, and I would too if guys did these sort of things. (I just outed you, sorry) These two moms were raving about the PC parties and they went on for a least half an hour. I guess the key is to have really good food. (I agree; you can’t go wrong with good food.) They compared food at different parties and both admitted that they love to go to the parties, but would never host one because of all the hard work and preparing the food.

Vernal just told me that I need to watch Mr. Mom. It’s late. I’ll end with that, because I don’t think I have a point or forgot what it was.