I’ve been keeping up with Julie’s Halloween Party saga and when I read about the one child showing up my worst fears had been realized. Granted, in someone else, but STILL. WORST. FEAR. And then? The kicker piece of good advice from her reader Ellen:

Thanks, everyone, for your sympathetic indignation, your support, and your suggestions. The one that I found most helpful was the observation Ellen made, that I need to “mommy network.” Leaving aside the fact that the idea of “mommy anything”ing fills me with trepidation, she’s right: “This is all about you socializing. Sorry, that’s the game.”

Mommy Networking. Wow. That’s what it’s called. The thing that I’ve been battling/dreading for years. Hell, my oldest child is almost 15, I’ve been avoiding this for over a decade.

Except that – oddly enough – it’s something I’ve been improving on since early October. It’s a very timely topic in my life, you could say.

Let me start by telling you how I deeply I’ve been avoiding these type of parental social situations. Until early October, I never attended ANY of the parties I was invited to at my children’s school. NONE of them. (I’m very glad our school has some sort of policy that EVERY kid has to be invited if the invitations show up at school. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been invited to any I’m sure.) Even when LilZ was young enough to be invited to these gatherings, I was avoiding them. I’ve been discarding invitations for years. The only contact I have had with the parents of my kid’s classmates was at school parties and functions. And then…I usually (conveniently) found myself running between classes, or taking pictures, or doing just about anything other than socializing with the other parents. I was so awkward around them that when I happened to run into anyone outside of school? I couldn’t even say, “Hi!” without being awkward. I often found myself running away down other aisles if they hadn’t seen me yet.

Julie? DUDE. I totally get you.

Sidenote – I’ve always gotten along swimmingly with the kids. They love me. They know me from times I drop my and hang out or now, when I pick up NikkiZ halfday and I hang out at lunch, they are familiar with my face and I don’t ever run from them. Because socializing with the under-5 crowd is no problem for me.

So, fast-forward to October when we were invited to a party for one of the director’s children. I know the staff of the school very well. For some reason, I’m not scared of them. We exchange books, tell funny stories about our kids, and ask follow-up questions about other family members. I consider them friends, so it was very easy to accept this invitation. And you know what? Once I got past the fear of the situation? I actually had fun.

Then we had our own party for NikkiZ and wanted to invited the classroom. I guess that’s when I realized that there is a group of kids at the school and in the classes that are regulars at the parties. No one else bothers to RSVP with regrets even when it says, “REGRETS ONLY.” And…um….I was one of those Ignore The Invitations parents. I learned through our process that maybe that was a little rude of me. (YOU THINK?) So, between having fun at our first school-related birthday party, and having our first party we invited school kids to, I learned that maybe I should make an attempt at this Mommy Networking.

So – just this past weekend? I went to ANOTHER party. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? This party was at one of the places that has all of the inflatable slides and stuff inside. I had never been to one of those parties before and I have made a decision: I will throw MYSELF a party at one of those places before I die. MARK MY WORDS. It was so fun. Of course, I ended up with injuries:

Yes, I was tweeting during a four-year-old’s birthday party. You can take the blogger away from her computer but you can’t make her STOP BLOGGING. Anyway – it was loads of fun. I could totally Mommy Network all day long if we can break it up with the periodic romp down a giant inflatable slide. I talked with one other Mom from school who even mentioned that her child’s upcoming party is going to be at the same place. I am praying it will be on a weekend we’ll actually be in town which it may not be as her birthday is around the time MrZ and I will be going to Tucson.

That’s a sign I’ve come a long way. If I can’t come to the party – I will actually call with my regret. And even more surprisingly? I will be SAD about it.

I don’t see me hosting any Mommy functions or anything anytime soon, but I have at least become comfortable enough around these parents that I may be able to speak to them at the grocery store. As a matter of fact? I saw one of them at Publix and WE TALKED. Granted…this particular Mother is fantastically charming and makes me feel very much at ease and not insecure like I often do. Either way, I talked to her. I didn’t run and hide down the aisles to avoid her.

It’s always about the baby steps, isn’t it?