Solidarity! And at least one liar.

I've been home now with this little monkey for just about three months, and the long-term effects are beginning to settle in.  For example, I have a really hard time talking to adults.  It's not that I use baby talk with Henry, because I don't, but more that I've forgotten how to regulate both rate and length of conversation coming out of my mouth.  It's probably because I don't get to go outside very much.

If I go to the post office, the clerk might have to repeat a question a couple of times because I've forgotten how to do "post office" things in favor of reprogramming my brain to be able to change a baby's clothes in the middle of the night without either party falling to the floor crying.  It's a skill.  Alternatively, I'll find myself at a house party, talking to someone and suddenly, inside my head, I'll hear myself and say, "Self, shut the hell up. Even I am tired of listening to you."  So on the outside, it looks like me talking a whole bunch, then stopping and apologizing, then realizing I have nothing else to say.  I am now the awkward person at your party, trying desperately to apply mustard to a bratwurst while holding a squirmy baby. Nobody wants to talk to that person. I don't blame them.

See, even now I've forgotten where the hell I was going with all this.  Oh, right. Okay, so I'm really excited to start going to a new group tomorrow that's all first-time, stay-at-home moms.  It's 8 or 9 ladies and their babies, all getting together at someone's house every Wednesday for three weeks. I'm far too excited for my own good, because 1) it's something to go to that is not inside my house and 2) everyone else will be just about as clinically retarded as I am.

It feels like the first day of classes at a new school, wondering if I'll make any friends and whether I'll fit in. The host emailed everyone, asking us to reply and say a little bit about ourselves and the kids, etc.  I was afraid I was going to have to read emails from a bunch of Mommybots -- you know, the ones that go, "Little MycKyhnzyie is the greatest gift I've ever been given.  From the moment I saw her, we just fell in love with each other and every waking second since her birth has been indescribably precious and joyful." For those of you who haven't had any children, I am here to tell you that that's the fattest line of horseshit ever. Ever. And for those of you who have had children and been deceitful enough to say anything like this in hopes of making yourselves sound like a better person, I hope you're ashamed of yourself.

That whole last paragraph goes better if you read it out loud in the voice of Lewis Black, featured in the "Back in Black" segments on The Daily Show. Wait, I'll go put in a picture.  There.  Now, if you've read it out loud with the right amount of vitriol, I'll give you a second to wipe the rage-induced spittle from your screen.

The good news, if it can be called that, is that everyone else seems just about as overwhelmed, bitter, and lonely as I am, with the exception of one woman whose email approached Mommybot status. I shall not judge her quite yet, and shall assume that she'll be more honest in person. But really, I'm so very excited to meet people just like me.  It must be what kids at the Special Olympics feel like.