wee folks and small talk

i took a day off work in anticipation of a shindig for a 40th birthday bash for my sister and her two crib mates, joy and perky.

(this is not my sister; she is perky's sister.)

i figured during the night and ensuing day, there'd be a lot of socializing and catching up and commiserating with old friends and i didn't want to miss it.

thing is, there was a small variable i didn't account for. he's a smidge over 2 feet tall and weighs about 25 pounds. yeah, that one.

almost everyone i wanted to see saturday was there. but i didn't get to say more than "hi" and "how are you" before i had to chase after the boy.

and even if the boy was with someone, i was distracted enough by his breakaway potential that i couldn't focus on the person with whom i was speaking.

mostly what came out of my mouth were chit-chatty non sequiturs, like so many one-liners to fill the space where personal interest should have been.

i'm not particularly upset, just a little taken aback by how i'd wrongly assumed i could simply plug back in to my old social habits despite the very evident change that my life has undergone.

it's odd that i thought somehow my relationships with those outside the home would remain static when those within have progressed so substantially.

adjusting to life with a toddler is like gaining weight then having to learn which clothes fit only after trying them on.

you have to re-learn for every situation since you don't know which outfits you'll be wearing from event to event.

some parts of your life slip on like a trusty t-shirt and are about the same as before. others will have to wait until things are back to "normal," and some, i suspect, you'll never get back to again.

i think, now that the boy is mobile at gatherings, i'm going to have to seek strategic sitters i can trust for more than five minutes at a time so i can actually engage again.

and if that doesn't work ... well, we'll catch up in about 10 years or so.