Weirdo Mom Alert

I have the opportunity to share car-pooling with another mom to my daughter's preschool. The preschool is 20 minutes away on a good day and this mom lives just a few streets away from me. The other mom has suggested I drive the girls to school and she, her husband, or her nanny will drive them home after. But I'm not down with the plan.

Oh, you're thinking, since the title of this blog entry is weirdo mom alert, you must be about to tell a funny story about this mom's idiosyncracies which keep you from wanting your child in a car wih her.

No, no. I"M the weirdo mom. I can't stand the thought of
A. missing out on Tallulah's face when she sees me come to pick her up. It gives me a little synopsis of her day-- generally joyous. She just lights up.

B. missing out on a chance to get a little taste of her day from her teacher. Her teacher walks the kids out one by one to the parents and gives them a little chat about how the day went. From these chats I've learned about Tallulah's favorite kids, favorite activities, and first meltdown-- I wouldn't have known any of this otherwise.

C.missing out on the 20 minute ride home which doesn't generally give me any information (see previous entry) but I hold out hope. At the least I get to hear Tallulah sing songs from the day.

And D., the one that positively makes me a weirdo mom, I can't stand the thought of twenty extra minutes without her, especially 20 minutes of her being in a car in traffic. This has nothing to do with the driving abilities of the other mom, her husband, or her nanny. This has to do with a completely irrational need for any car accidents Tallulah is involved in to also involve me. If she's going to be bleeding at the side of the road, dammit, I want to be right there bleeding with her.

I'm pretty sure the last one is a pregnancy induced irrationality and once the baby is here not only will I not think about car accidents anymore, but I will beg the homeless people in the park behind our house to please take my car and go pick up my daughter from school so I can get an extra 20 minutes of sleep.

I'm going to go ahead and run with my inner weirdo, though. I've actually regretted it when I've tried to ignore her in the past. Its only happened twice: Once at the pediatric dentist when they wanted two year old Tallulah to get her final fluoride treatment without me (hello, she's two! Why would you even WANT to be in a two year old's mouth without a parent around?) and again during a swim class when her best friend was crying hysterically out of fear and the instructors kept expecting Tallulah to ignore it and keep swimming. That was awesome because Tallulah began resisting the instructors and crying during class out of solidarity for Grace. But both times my inner mom weirdo said, who cares if this is standard practice? THIS DOES NOT FEEL RIGHT!

I tried to ignore this feeling. Stop it, you weirdo, I told myself. Obviously this is how it works. People are going to realize you are weird if you make a fuss. And then afterwards I kicked myself. Sure, the nurse was in with the dentist, but what if he was a pedophile? Tallulah wasn't even verbal enough to tell me anything. And besides that, I didn't get a chance to see the dentist and ask any questions (which I think was the actual point.) And I tell Tallulah to be caring towards her friends and pay attention to them if they feel bad or are hurt. Why would the rules change in swim class?

Shit, my inner weirdo was right! Which of course means that I'm trying to listen to my instincts. It also means at some point I will do something truly weird in the name of good parenting. Probably something extremely embarassing for both myself and my children.

I can't wait. And more importantly, neither can Tallulah.