Odd One Out

Sometimes I feel like the only person that isn't getting the butt of all the jokes..(maybe because I am the joke, who knows?)

I can have a dry sense of humor..but I'm not as bad as Mr. Roper from "Three's Company" or anything. Jeez. Clue a girl in.

I had a conversation yesterday with one of our friends. Now this is a friend of Jeff's, he's the same age as we are and he has 2 boys that are 7 and 4.

The conversation usually goes something along the lines of :

• How are you?
• How are the kids?
• What's new?
• How's work?

All the typical pleasantries before I usually pass the phone off to Jeff and leave the room because honestly; I don't need to hear them compare the sizes of the private parts in terms of who is winning this week in FANTASY BASEBALL..no-really; not so much.

However, on this particular day Jeff wasn't home so our friend and I continued on past our normal pleasantries.

He began telling me he bought a season pass to the Milwaukee Zoo that he's going to share with his ex-wife, asking me about my time home, about the move, about Kyle and baseball and talking about a mutual friend that will be moving to Detroit at the end of the month.

Then the conversation turned a little defensive. (Now let me preface this with saying that this guy and I have butted heads several times over the years and I've learned to really just ignore half of what he says for the sake of his friendship with Jeff)

He goes on to say "You and Jeff should really find 2 days to come up to Milwaukee. We'll take the boys to the zoo, maybe go to a Brewers Game. Either a Sun/ Mon or Mon/Tues before August and then I'll come down with the boys in August after you move."

Now don't get me wrong...I don't care if our entire family invites themselves to our house..but when I said "Dave I just don't see how that is going to be possible. Jeff is requesting so many days to not work...because of graduation and stuff that I don't see him getting a request for another couple of days between now and July because July is just out of the question with baseball. July is when all the tournaments start."

His next response is what knocked me right over.

"Well you've left Kyle behind before, couldn't you come without Kyle."

"Dave-it's not about coming WITHOUT Kyle..it's about not seeing Kyle's games-TOURNAMENT games. I don't want to miss any of his games."

"Well Angie, your life can't revolve around Kyle's baseball games."

"Dave, you don't understand yet because your aren't playing sports. What will you do if they play sports?"

"I don't know but I can't imagine turning into that psycho that does nothing but cater to their kids."

CATER TO MY KIDS?

I don't cater to my kids. Ok...well maybe I do a little...but ya know what..Jeff and I look forward to baseball season EVERY year. We LOVE to watch him play, we love to hang out with the parents we've been playing with since the kids were 8----we LOVE baseball. I don't go to the games because I HAVE TO or SHOULD (I still don't get the parents that drop their kids off and drive away...what if they get hurt...sure they are 14 but really now) I go to baseball because I WANT TO. I LOVE to watch him play, I LOVE to be outside.

All of "our" friends and I say "our" because none of these are OUR friends..they're all Jeff's friends from college and their wives..but they all have kids 7 or younger and expect us to just jump up on a Thurs and come to their house for the weekend. We can't do it.

So I just feel like no one understands us and I wonder what we must look like to them. I hate that I care what they think..but I tried NOT to ya know...JUMP down Jeff's throat without a parachute when we got home from baseball last night. Funny that I would have this conversation on a day that Kyle actually had a game.

We get home and Jeff says "that was fun tonight." I said "Yes, it was..maybe you could explain that to Dave" and I proceeded to tell him about our conversation.

Jeff tried to play Devil's advocate saying "Dave just wants to spend time with us, he doesn't think before he says some things."

"and ya know what ...that's fine..but to call me a psycho that caters to her children... as if I'm supposed to dump MY son to go up there and spend time with HIS kids?? How does that make sense? We're the only ones with a teenager...he has ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE how fast his boys are gonna grow up, how fast it goes, HOW much you should grab onto this time when the kids are playing ball and how you can be a part of that. I will NOT apologize for enjoying watching Kyle play ball, nor will I apologize enjoying sitting around with the other Moms and Dads talking about graduation, teacher issues, directions to games, umpires from last week or the difficulty in planning a graduation party with our crazy schedules..because ya know what....THEY get it, They understand, they love it as much as we do. Most of them know exactly how long before it's all over and how precious it is. I am NOT going to explain myself to Dave."

Jeff just shook his head and apologized for what...I'm not sure.

I just feel very sad because 3 other sets of friends will get together and do things on weekends and most of the time we can't go...so I feel like MY son, is tying Jeff down and keeping him from hanging with his friends...and when I said that to Jeff....he got up with tears in his eyes and left the room.

I'm not sure if those tears were because I was RIGHT or I was VERY WRONG...but he went to bed..and again..I sat there in the living room by myself...feeling like the Odd One Out.