I had a call from the mother of Warrick's best friend at school. We haven't met in person yet, but our sons have been wanting us to talk so they can try to score some sleepovers. She told me that she had expressed concern to the teacher over allowing her son to visit my house, but the teacher said, "If I had kids, I would absolutely allow them to stay with Mandy." I was all what?!?! Because of all five teachers, she is the one who I know I drive up the wall with my inability to be a parent of a public school child. But I guess, when it doesn't come to school, she thinks I'm all right, and probably because she shares my awesome coffee shop and knows I have good judgement even though I can't get to school on time or do enough homework for a fourth grader.
That made me feel a lot better about myself, until I became all scandalous today with my secret baby.
I figured that being a single mother of six children would have garnered all the judgemental looks one person could possibly receive in today's society. The fact that I can have no more children, while not obvious to anyone who doesn't know me, is well known by my circle of friends. So today, when I showed up at church with my friends' new baby, I did not expect any more looks than I normally get just from the attention Donovan draws with his normal insanity during mass.
It seems that some people may have missed the news about the no-more-kids thing, completely ignored the single thing, and obviously never noticed before that I am NOT the kind of girl who can hide a pregnancy. On the contrary, I would start showing about three minutes after conception, and by week three, people were asking if I was having twins.
I had a few people ask me where I got the baby, but a couple more just gaped at me in shock. I couldn't figure out what the problem was so I figured my shirt was too low or something, until I realized they were looking at the baby.
It was a little awkward because they didn't actually say anything to me, and I didn't want to just randomly walk up to people and say "Oh, this isn't my kid, you know." I thought maybe I should put a sign on the baby that said "No, this isn't my mom", but then I didn't want anyone to think I kidnapped her, either, because my friend wouldn't be too impressed with my babysitting skills if I got arrested while I was watching her daughter. Don't ask me how I know, just trust me on that.
I have to wonder what they're going to think next week when I show up without her.
