Today is the first day that I felt like my old self: The Girl Who Can’t Sit Down. I’m trying to soak it in while I can, before someone flushes another toy down the toilet or eats a bug off the floor or runs naked through the front yard at dinnertime.

Today, I dusted my house. I ran errands, I took a shower, I ate real meals at the table and I even took a kid to story time at the library. That was … SOMETHING. I’m no rookie mom, but sitting in a crowd of harried women wrangling screaming toddlers shook me up a little. I kept looking around thinking, “This is who I am now. I’m one of them.” It felt weird to me, because even though I was surrounded by young moms with young children I still didn’t feel like I was at home in that situation. They all looked so exhausted. DO I LOOK THAT EXHAUSTED? 

Honestly, I don’t know why I don’t ever feel like I fit in a particular category. I’m fairly certain it’s not them, it’s me. In the middle of story time a toddler girl threw a fit, like a hysterical, shrieking, red-faced FIT, and I started silent-laughing uncontrollably. I tried to stop, but the more she screamed, the more I silent-laughed. My whole body was shaking as her mother carted her off. We could hear her shrieking from way across the library. And then I thought, yes — that’s what the problem is. I have weird humor and laugh at inappropriate times and all of these other moms seemed like they were too damn tired to laugh AT ANYTHING.

Husband keeps telling me I need to make more stay-at-home mom friends, but after today I think most stay-at-home moms are borderline batty and we — I include myself in this statement — are all so focused on making sure we remember to clothe everyone before they go outside that it can be hard to form new friendships. My method of coping is just to laugh at everything … it really doesn’t matter if it’s an appropriate time or not. Because if I wasn’t laughing, I would be emoting something else and it wouldn’t be nearly as pleasant.

So I guess my new goal is to find mommy friends who don’t find my humor off-putting, because if your kid or mine throws a red-faced, hysterical FIT I’m definitely going to silent-laugh. What else are you going to do?!