Dear toddler mommy:

OK, you're nice and all... completely annoying, but you mean well. However, I must point out that even though you seem to not understand WHY my 6-year-old would not like to come to your kid's 2nd birthday party, you will understand in approximately four years.

For one thing, the theme is a little kids' TV show, which is something Erin doesn't completely hate, but is more prone to turn on and then get bored with two minutes later, BECAUSE IT'S FOR 3-YEAR-OLDS!!! So no, the fact that you're doing that theme does not entice me to subject my kid to it in the least.

For another thing, you already invited some of our friends (whose kids are close in age to ours), and they told you no for the same reasons, so there will not be any older kids there for her to play with. She likes little kids, don't get me wrong, but she's not going to be very pleased with spending the entire afternoon with nothing but toddlers.

Take my word for it. My first-grader does not wish to attend. Can we please leave it at that?

Signed,
School-age kid mommy






Is it just me, or have toddler parents gotten more obnoxious within the past couple years? I was discussing this with my friends May and Kelly the other day at coffee. We've all got younger elementary school aged kids, but those are our oldest. Kelly has a 4-year-old as well, and May and I both have babies. We all have noticed that toddler moms are becoming really obnoxious. They all want to get our kids together, and don't take the hint when we mention that we can't make it because of our kids' school activities, sports practices, or other big kid stuff that's a daily reality for our families. I mean, if our younger kids were of the age to play with their toddlers, then I could see the point, but they're not. Kelly's son gets along best with the school-aged kids anyhow because he's not much younger than they are, and the babies won't really be good playmates for toddlers. Somehow, if we explain this straight out to these toddler momzillas, they get really mad, and word gets around post that we think we're too good to hang out with anyone whose kids are younger than ours. That's simply not the case. What I don't want is to spend an afternoon listening to my 6-year-old whine about how bored she is because all there is to play with is a room full of 1 and 2 year olds.

When Erin was a toddler, I cannot ever recall thinking a school-aged kid would be a good playmate for her. I cannot ever recall thinking that some mom with school-aged kids thought she was better than us just because she wasn't up for a playdate. (BTW, it's not called a playdate anymore once they're older than about 5.) May and Kelly say the same of when their oldest girls were little.

Maybe it's because we were all young mommies, and now that we're the age when a lot of people start their families (Kelly, 24; May, 30; Me, 27) the moms who are our age do tend to have younger kids. Within the military community, the norm is to have kids while you're very young, so most toddler mommies aren't quite legal drinking age, if you get what I'm saying. I understand why a 28-year-old wouldn't want to hang out with that set, but at the same time, shouldn't she, of all people, understand why our 6-8 year old daughters (and Kelly's 4-year-old son) don't want to hang out with her 2-year-old?