It adds up

What do you get if you combine:
7 moms
6 toddlers
2 infants
1 pan of cinnamon rolls
+ oodles of juice boxes, cookies and kiddie snacks?
____________________________________________
Play group.

I broke down and finally decided to host one. I figured it was my turn to take one for the team. I was nervous about it, because our house is on the small side and I only have toddler toys. The yard isn’t finished yet -- unless you treat the permanently parked excavator as a kind of jungle gym. But despite everything, it was a successful play group, as evidenced by the fact that the kiddos actually played.

This result may seem like a given, as playing is the titular purpose of the gathering, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes the kiddies play, but often they just bat at each other, throw snacks around and then pester their minders in toddlerese: “Home now? Go home now? Home car? Car now?” There were many times I wondered why I attend these at all.

But, really, I know why. I attend them because they are opportunities for mothers to get together, swap stories, get advice and form a support network. Of the six other moms who came, half are military wives. Single-parenting tours of duty up to a year long lie in their futures, if they haven’t chalked up at least one already. One woman’s husband works in oil (obviously common here) and takes several-week trips to the oil-drilling North Slope. My friend Tracy’s husband is a postal inspector -- it sounds innocuous but in reality involves last-minute trips to the remote reaches of this state to investigate packages that could contain anything from minor contraband to hazardous substances or devices. If there’s a post office there, he goes there. And, as he often depends on bush pilots, he subsequently gets stranded there, extending his absence from home. The sixth mom’s husband works in aviation, another profession that takes him away often.

And while husbands are gone, life goes on. Kids need care. Kids get sick. Moms need breaks. And most of them, especially the military wives, are far from extended family and other support networks. So they make their own. They print phone lists and distribute rosters with military precision. They schedule ladies’ nights out and luncheons like clockwork.

In another life, when I was a military member myself, I used to scoff at these seemingly artificial structures constructed by women’s groups. But I know better now. The ladies schedule events with machinelike predictability, because they know, without a doubt, that moms will need them. Things will happen. And when they do, all these events -- play groups, nights out, rosters, bunco nights -- will form the mesh of a net that can help catch a woman when her own plans and schedules fall through. There will be someone to call. There will be someone to ask. There will be someone to listen. There will be someone else who feels just like you.