Dangerously Low On Friends With Kids

Hey, friends. Sorry for the long delay. I haven't folded up the tent yet.

I hope everyone had a good holiday season. I listen to a lot of Christmas music. One day my son and I are sitting around the house and he goes, "We need some Christmas music." I think I get this from my dad. He's that guy that turns the tunes on Thanksgiving and keeps kicking out the jams nonstop all through New Year's Eve.

You know what I have noticed about Christmas music? Not as much Christ in it. It seems like the secular songs are edging out the religious ones as the years go on. When I watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special the other day I noticed that the kids are wondering what the true meaning of Christmas is, Linus launches into a bible passage about the birth of Jesus. I don't think you would see that happen in today's world if Daniel Tiger or the dogs on Paw Patrol were presented with the same question. This is actually a good thing because it is showing more acceptance of other religions and that America is not just a white Christian nation.

"May your days be crispy and greasy"

But, the Jesus songs are usually better, right? I have a theory about this. If you got two songwriters, one an atheist given the task of writing the best possible song about his Christmas tree, he may very well write a catchy number. However, if the second guy is a devout Christian who actually deeply believes all that malarkey about Jesus being is his savior and he could go to Hell if he doesn't praise Him, well he's likely to write one hell of a song, right? His ass depends on it. Those old classical Christmas songs are God damn intense for a reason! Then again, Christian rock sucks compared to godless rock so there goes that theory. Fuck it. What the hell do I know.

Mrs. Noisewater and I have very few friends with kids who still live in the city. Many of them have moved out to the burbs, one moved out of state, and another left the country. The Noisewaters need a Fred and Ethel in a bad way. We do come across folks with kids, but we find ourselves finding reasons to justify not making friends with them:

"I have enough friends."
"I'm not going to be friends with somebody just so my kid has someone to play with."
"I like the mom, but the dad sucks (or the other way around)."

Don't they look happy? And Complete?

But lately we are starting to think that maybe we are being picky and elitists about the whole thing. You're not going to find the perfect couple to hang out with with the greatest kid ever. So as our latest round of Erik's swim class was coming to a close I suggested that we invite the other 3 sets of parents out for a breakfast afterwords. Mrs. Noisewater said that may have been nice, but we would have had to do that the week before to give a little notice. We would probably be left alone at the diner, which was cool with me; more pancakes for me. I just figured I should take a shot. But as the class was wrapping up and we were heading to the showers to wash off our kids, one of the mommies started asking us loads of questions. Was she trying to be our friend? Erik gave their daughter, Jane, a hug goodbye, which was weird because the kids were mostly naked.

While in the changing room, Mrs. Noisewater and I were discussing the conversation and thinking that we just chickened out, and we should probably go find them to exchange information before they left. I think Erik did not want it to be their last goodbye either because he kept crying, "I want to go see naked Jane!" That's my boy! We were able to exchange information and talked about a play date soon. Mrs. Noisewater drummed up some liquid courage when she was out with a friend and texted a date and time and . . . Boom! They're coming over Saturday morning to hang out for a couple of hours.

It should be a lot of fun. Erik Noisewater loves visitors. But he already said something about not wanting her to play with his trains, so maybe we will hide all of those first so he doesn't pistol whip her with Thomas or Percy, or a left-right combo with both. That would likely be an abrupt end to their friendship. I will also have to extinguish him calling her Naked Jane. She will need a new moniker like Swimming Jane, or something else less creepy. Also the dad is taller than me. I don't like when that happens, but I'll make do. Maybe throw on some Gene Simmons platform boots . . .

Okay, friends. Sorry again for the long delay. I hope to be a better blogger, and I'm off to do the blogroll rounds to see what you all have been up to.

Any tips that you guys have for how to make friends that we can discuss in the comments?