How hanging with a young childless friend is making me a better mom

As some of you know, I've been without a car since we moved. If you weren't keeping track of how long that is, I'll tell you. It's been six full weeks since Jeremy started work. He drives the car to work. I dream about cars and scan the internet for cheap ones while I'm at home. I also tear my hair out trying to figure out how Charlie is going to get home from school every day.

You see, this lovely school district (it's called Neshaminy--with the emphasis on the SHAM. No, for real.) provides buses to take the little morning kindergartners TO school, but doesn't provide buses to get them home. Lovely. So every day I have to make some arrangements to get him home. Sometimes, I drive Jeremy to work or to a train station so I can have the car. But mostly, I rely on other people to help me pick Charlie up.

This week, my helper has been this young thing I met at church. According to her facebook page, she graduated from high school in 2005. And she acts her age. She has been driving me around to run errands and then stopping at Charlie's school to let me meet him at the schoolroom door. And she talks like I'm doing her the favor since she gets to hang out with me and my kids all morning.

After spending a couple of hours with her three times in the last week and a half, I've noticed some things about her. And since I'm still thinking about those things I've noticed, I'll share.

My kids talk to her. And she listens. She does what I've read about in some parenting books--when Johnny says something to her, she repeats it back. I've tried this. I still do try it. But when she does it, it works. She doesn't just repeat what he's said. She says it as if it's the most fascinating thing she's heard in a while. And then the most amazing thing happens. He says, "Uh-huh, and . . . ." It's cute and great.

It may or may not be true, but when she is talking with my kids, she seems like she's having the time of her life. And--this is not surprising--they eat it up. That's great, but beyond that, she's having fun. Just talking to them. And when I'm around her, it's easier for me to have fun just listening to them, too. And I think, gosh, I could do that. I could have fun just being with my kids.

Then I have a moment where I smack my own forehead and say, "duh."

She's unflaggingly positive and enthusiastic. She does things like try to buy a rubber chicken for her mother because she thinks it's on sale for $.29 (then put it back when she realizes it's $2.99) or plan the matching Christmas turtleneck/sweater combos she's going to buy for herself and her mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law so they can all match even though she thinks the Christmas sweaters are hideous. But they are hilarious in their hideousity. She told me when she saw the adult-sized footie pajamas that she's going to add them to her Christmas wish list. She spent a morning making puppets with my and the boys because I couldn't face doing it without another adult present.

She's got this irritating habit of always looking on the bright side.

And it's all contagious, and I think "I need to be more like this person." Even if I hardly know her and she might also drive me crazy.

There are limits to the ways I want to be like her. For example, she's married to someone who won't eat chicken and whose favorite food is boxed macaroni and cheese. Seriously. But still, I could learn a thing or two, huh? And even though I just turned 31, I'm determined this year to act even younger than last year. So who knows? You might see me and all my boys dressed in footie pajamas one of these days.