My Name is Sarah & I'm Ethan's Mom...

Now you say, "Hi, Sarah, Ethan's mom".

This is sort of what starting up a mom's group feels like---Moms Anonymous. My "Baby & Me" Yoga and Baby Massage classes have morphed into an informal mom's group. Last week three of us met at Starbucks and today seven of us met at a local coffee shop, babies in tow. We came equipped with bjorns, pacis, strollers, pacis, burp clothes, sun hats, pacis, toys, our horror stories and, oh...yeah, pacis.

I really enjoy meeting with these women. They are women I would have been friends with if I'd met them in a regular non-baby yoga class or if they were co-workers. But that's not how I met them. I met them because we all signed up for a class without knowing each other and because we were trying to make some sense of our new identities as moms; in particular moms who are staying at home, either permanently or for some undetermined stretch of time. We haven't really gotten into it yet, but I wonder if any of them feel like they are floating out in some unfamiliar space, grasping to make sense of it all. I think that's probably too *deep* for our second cup of coffee.

But there's lots of talk about breast pumps and labor and sleep habits and reflux, which I suppose is just as good as spilling your guts about how hard being a mother is and how exhausting and how you feel like your identity has slipped away and you feel like you're rebuilding from square one.....

Did I say that???

Anyway, what I mean is--I find it interesting that this group of women, we don't know each other at all, really. I only know their last names because of our email address list. I dont' know what they all did for a living before having kids. I don't know their husbands' names or what type of music they listen to, where they stand politically, or where they are from originally (well, I know where a couple of them are from). All I know is that they are other moms of other adorable babies and I enjoy their company. And I realize that that's all they know about me, too. I am Ethan's Mom. They are the first people I have known socially who see that as my primary identity.

I have to say, it's kind of cool.