Stroller Wars; and my apologies.

~* written from my perspective; pregnant for the first time, nervous, and hormonal; take these posts with a grain of salt please *~
When I started this blog, I wanted to share all my feelings and experiences regarding this pregnancy, and I was prepared for criticism and negative comments toward me and the way I handle pregnancy.  But the last thing that I wanted was to make other people I love feel hurt by my writing; I made a family member pretty sad in a prior post so I tried to be more vague in future posts and that didn't work either.  Unfortunately, being vague can make anyone (everyone) reading the blog feel bad for their actions, even when it wasn't directed at them and I apologize for this.  I receive lots of comments to my email regarding what I write, some great, some negative, and I have considered stopping writing so candidly because of this.  However, my husband insists that I need to keep writing, 'even if its not positive about him" (his words) because he can see how writing this has helped me.  Saying, "with all the things I have tried to do over the years to handle some of my fears, this is working for me the best for my pregnancy".   So, I will forge onward with a lesson learned and hope I can do better in the future .  I love and value all of my friends and family.



The main point that I didn't get across real well in my post yesterday is that I feel in limbo being pregnant.  I don't feel like a mom yet and I don't feel like my normal self either.  I feel somewhere in purgatory, waiting to feel 'right' or 'normal' again.  Josh says this is a new normal and I need to figure out how to get used to it, he is probably right.

My friend Erin and I have been chatting recently about my pregnancy and my feelings and fears; we have also been discussing how to handle a social life when the baby gets here.  I said that I still want to enjoy occasional happy hours, and time out with friends, concerts, but how do you do this with a kiddo?  My parents toted me around socially with them when I was young and I'd like to do the same, but maybe this isn't realistic or easy at all?  She mentioned in New York there are stroller wars going on; this cracked me up and pretty much sums up with an example of what I have been thinking about.  Her words are below:

"There is definitely a crazy culture war going on in NYC between people in our generation, so to speak.  It is the "stroller war".  A lot of parents our age (i.e. 30-40) don't want to give up all urban social life and move out to the suburbs, so they keep living in the city and take their strollers to bars.  One german bar around here has like, a family happy hour - isn't that crazy?  It's in the afternoon on weekdays.
But then there are people who hate the strollers, and complain online that those parents are not owning up to being parents, or taking responsibility in some way. There are a lot of haters, basically.
I wasn't that sensitive to people who wanted kids when I was 25, though.  So I have some sympathy for the haters, too."

I thought this was very interesting, kid friendly happy hours, how cool is that?  Then I thought that our city, Denver,  seems pretty kid friendly (at least to me).  There are lots of neighborhoods near downtown where you can see a single gal taking her dog for a walk next to the mom with two kids and their dog going for a walk.  This is a neighborhood some of our friends live in, and is the perfect example; its not the 'burbs' by any stretch, but its not quite downtown in the city either.  Its this perfect blend of both.  I wonder what the people in their neighborhood think of kids and strollers at the bars and happy hours?  I can't say I have ever noticed any negativity, but maybe I wasn't paying attention either.   My mom says that maybe we won't want to go out as much when the kiddo gets here, which is probably very true; but we don't go out all that often and it would be nice to know we can tag-team parent and still be social.

Parents out there; what do you do?  (We don't live close enough to family to have someone watch our kiddo and paying a babysitter for every outing isn't an option either.)