Oh, to be an adult among adults...

So, it should say something about my social life that I spent the kids' nap time yesterday trying to figure out what to wear to Ben's work Christmas party so that I wouldn't look so "mom-ish". I can fit into a lot of pre-pregnancy stuff now, but it's not super comfy yet. I pulled out all of my "teacher" clothes and though I could wear some none of them really gave me that non-mom feeling. I finally pulled something together that made me happy and I was actually excited to get out (at dinnertime no less) of the house and have an adult break.
I found myself in an entirely new situation during our socializing, though. I am now the non-working one. I am the stay at home mom who stands and smiles while everyone else talks about work. This is totally new. I began to have these crazy visualizations of myself nodding my head like a Stepford wife and agreeing with everything my husband says. I was painfully aware of the fact that no one there knew anything about me other than the fact that I had just had twins a few months ago and that I stay home to care for them.
Finally, probably noticing my distraction while I analyzed these crazy thoughts in my head, one of the women we were chatting with asked me what I do. She was probably one of the only ones who didn't know about the twins since she doesn't actually work directly with Ben. So, I got to talk about my choice to stay home with the kids rather than teach for awhile. Then Ben brought in my writing aspirations, which he is sort of having for me at the moment, and I got to talk a bit about literature. I felt better. I felt that at least these people now know there is a brain in my head that doesn't only speak Mom.
I enjoyed feeling attractive and having adult conversations...I didn't even realize that it has probably been close to a year since I have had such an experience. Seriously. We didn't do a whole lot of "adult" socializing from my perch on the couch, and since the twins were born we've done a few very short dates which we yawned through and spent talking about how to get more sleep.
It's a crazy thing when you step back into the world outside of parenting and realize that it has been going on without you...there are people out there who truly do sleep at night and eat meals without having to ask their table mates to sit down and use a fork.
Many of the people we chatted with were also parents; there were even two Dads of twins. So, the parenting world was sort of blended with the adult wine drinking world. It was nice. I even confessed to one couple, who are also parents, that I spent nap time deciding what to wear. It felt good to be in a dress and not sweat pants, though the minute I got home I had to rip the dress off so that I could breast feed Ronan who had just woken up...my sweat pants and breast milk stained camisole were back on within 3 minutes of entering the house. I suppose there is something metaphorical about that. You can dress the Mom up, but she's still Mom underneath. I can accept this.
I promised Ben that as soon as my eyes stop throbbing with exhaustion I will consider beginning to write. As it is I can see that the quality of even my blog posts is affected by my lack of sleep. Some are witty and mildly intelligent, some are simply rants with bad grammar and ill formed sentences...I've got a long way to go before I can confidently fill more than a page or two...
Until then, cheers to my boys and Happy Holidays!