I may be blond, but I'm a brunette mom.

Paddy went to his first preschool buddy birthday party yesterday.  The entire class was invited to Jumpers (a big inflatable slide and bounce house place) to play and have pizza and cake.  Paddy was so excited.  I was armed with my blackberry to keep me company since I don't know any of the other kids' moms.  When we got out of the car, kids were yelling "Paddy D's here!" and "Hey Paddy!"...made me feel pretty good.  Of course Paddy took off and left me standing there alone with my blackberry.  He was fine and didn't need me.  So I started introducing myself to the other moms.  "Hi, I'm Jess, Paddy D's mom".  I kept hearing, "oh [insert classmate name here] talks about Paddy D all the time, he just loves him."  Again, have to admit, I loved it.  I did my best to try to strike up conversations.  Some of the other moms knew each other since they had older kids that attended school together.  As soon as there was a sign that uncomfortable silence might be settling in, I pretended I couldn't see Paddy and went to look for him.  In the first hour you could see the moms move into their circles.  There were the blonds that all seemed to know each other and serve on the parent's group.  There were the brunettes that didn't seem to know each other but chatted about common kid stuff.  Then there was the foreign couple, they kind of stuck together (really like that mom though, she does Facebook, cool).  And of course the token dad.  Here's where I tell you that I'm not exaggerating.  The groups were really as distinct as hair color.  The dad kind of lingered near the brunettes, but that would make sense, being that he was also a brunette (curious where he would have ended up had he been blond, hmm).

Considering that I'm blond, volunteered for the parent's group, had a kid that all the other kids wanted to play with, and was sporting a Coach pocketbook, it would seem pretty clear as to which crew I'd be runnin' with, right?  WRONG!  "Why?" you ask.  Well, it seems that all of the blond moms paid good money to be blond, and I come by it naturally.  This may also by why I never got called when I signed up to volunteer.  Apparently, the cool kid and Coach bag just weren't enough, you also need to kiss the asses of the other blond moms as well as their children's and endure having your heiny smooched too.  As the party progressed and I mingled, I realized that all the blond moms talked about were how wonderful the other's kids are, how nice their new car is, how great their husband is, their beautiful backyard ("you have to give me your landscaper's number") and so on.  They weren't pretentious, definitely borderline, but it was like they all had these perfectly wonderful lives and just stood around complimenting each other on it.  Sooo not me.  Don't get me wrong, I think I have a nice home, a nice car, I love my husband and kids, some days more than others, but I don't need to be told how lovely it all is...and I'm certainly not down with swooning over your fantastic wonderfulness.

Now, the brunettes, they may not have been the "cool kids", but I liked that fact that they wore ponytails and didn't have their hair perfectly styled.  They wore their babies not bejeweled ballet flats.  They were more concerned with their kid beating up another kid rather than telling me how perfect my kid is.  They nursed in public.  They laughed about what their house was going to look like when they got home after leaving their husband with the other kids all afternoon.  I could totally get on board with that one, considering there is usually a broken glass within 5 minutes of me leaving.  Yes, the brunettes did not even pretend to live perfect lives, and they found the humor in the misadventures of their day to day goings on.  I'd much rather laugh about my husband trying to clean up crushed cheerios with a flowbee than have a perfect dye job.  I am definitely a brunette mom.  And that's just fine with me.  It's enough that all the kids want to play with mine...even the blondies' kids.