Bunco Night

"Hey Birdie's mom, I'm going to my grandpa's," Birdie's friend at kindergarten tells me. "It's Bunco Night."

Oh so that was it. "That sounds like fun," I tell Jaron.

That morning I had walked into school with Jaron and his mom Cheryl, as I do many mornings. I have made some new friends with the parents at the elementary school, and I see them every day. They are cheerful people who tell jokes, share stories about their kids or their former lives without childcare duty, and swap recipes. I look forward to hanging out with them; they are the happy people who make my life happier. We have exchanged phone numbers, taken our kids trick or treating together, and had some play dates. We are the over-40 parents as distinguished from the teenage parents who look like they are 12, have lots of tattoos, and wear pajamas and slippers to drop-off.

So when we were walking into the school, Cheryl called out to another one of the mothers, "Hey are you going to make it tonight at 6:30?" I wandered purposefully toward the kindergarten, not wanting to seem like I was asking to be invited, too. Ouch: junior high school all over again.

Jaron asks if he could come over for a sleepover. "Sure, you are always welcome to come over," I tell him. "How many sleepovers has Birdie been to?" Jaron asks, and Birdie holds up a fist with no fingers showing and scowls meaningfully at Mean Mom. "ZERO". Chip off the old block.

"I have been to---oh so many I can't even count," the five year old friend goes on, wiggling his fingers. Oh boy, just like his social mom.

Bunco is a card game, I found out, but also a really carefree all-girls get together. Maybe the next year the fun parents will learn how fun I am and invite me to bunco night, too!