Ever notice that there is a big difference between the moms who have just one child so far and the moms who have at least two?
Here’s what I mean: At my 2-year-old’s gym class, I often notice the new moms: massive strollers, sippy cups in every color and style, enough snacks to feed a preschool class. And they usually have good hair and makeup. They sit together and talk about new clothes for their toddlers and whose house they will meet at next.
Then there’s me: Not a part of that group. I wear no makeup. I think I showered. I have dried Cheerios on my shirt.
Before they even say it, I know that they have only one child by all this mounting evidence.
I know these moms because I used to be them — back in the days of one child.
If a toy or food even so much as came close to touching the ground, I disinfected like crazy. Now, it’s the two-second rule for food and who cares about toys. I never left the house without makeup and my toes always looked pretty.
But having a second child divided my time more, and getting two kids out the door is often a feat in itself.
Yeah, maybe I am a bit envious of this group.
But here’s something: As a mother of two, I have some different skills and perspective.
When my child runs away from circle time, I don’t go get her. She will return. When the mothers of single kids run away, they jump up so fast the kid only makes it two feet.
At the gym class, when my daughter is sitting in a huge pit of multicolored balls, another girl joins her and starts crying because she wants the orange ball my child is holding. “She really likes orange,” her mother says.
There are tons of orange balls in the pit. I wonder why the mother doesn’t just pick one up?
Finally, she has the nerve to say: “My daughter really wants THAT ball,” and points to the orange one my child is holding.
Get real. Not a chance, lady.
I know this woman hasn’t yet had another child or she’d know how to help the little girl share.
And there’s this: We mothers of two may look a mess, but we secretly are more organized than you know.
Laurie Jamison, a mother of a 10-month-old girl, said she notices that moms with more than one always have a routine.
“With more than one, you definitely have to have a routine,” she said. “With me, I fly by the seat of my pants. On the weekends, I’m like, ‘Oh, have we eaten?’”
Jamison said she is a bit nervous that when she does have another child she will have to establish a schedule.
But for now, baby Chloe is just her little pal.
“It’s easy to just pick up and go with one,” she says. “With two, you contemplate, do I really need that from the store?”
Michele Borba, author of the book “12 Simples Secrets Real Moms Know,” said it’s not so much the difference between the mothers of one versus the mothers of more than one, but that motherhood itself is full of cliques.
“They’re going to start looking for like-members — the football team mothers, the band mothers, all of the girls who were the cheerleading mothers,” she said. “There’s also the mothers of multiples, the private school mothers versus the public.”
Girls are used to cliques, and when they grow up, they form more cliques.
Borba says to look at that a positive thing.
“We need those cliques,” she said. “There’s nothing more difficult than mothering anyway. It just helps us have a support system.”
A support system — so that’s what it’s called.
So maybe I ought to be the one reaching out to the moms of one and letting them know that should they choose to have another, they’ve got some good things in store.
Even if their pedicures may fall by the wayside.
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