On Second Thoughts...

After writing my last post about joining a playgroup, I have been doing some research. It has to be said that the findings are not great!

It appears that playgroups can actually be rather scary places with clique mum's who don't take kindly to strangers. Walking into the church hall/village hall/community centre AKA the bear pit is like walking into a new school as the new kid, not knowing anyone, while everyone has already formed their friendship groups and you are most definitely the outsider!

Last night, I went to bed feeling rather saddened by my research. I tried to tell James about my depressing findings. Unfortunately he appeared to be asleep (seeing as though it was 2 o'clock in the morning) but I 'accidentally' kicked his leg so that he would wake up. Unfortunately, I didn't get the in-depth discussion about playgroups that I was hoping for. I only got as far as saying ' I have been looking at playgroups but mum's on the internet have said...' before he buried his head in the pillow and muttered 'Oh No' before going back to sleep!

Admittedly, my research was conducted on the internet so it wasn't the most scientific study in the world. I haven't had a chance to discuss it with James yet as I wasn't awake when he left for work at 6am this morning. I was still knackered from doing my research at 2am! However, when I do tell him, I know exactly what he will do. He will roll his eyes and say that I should be banned from the internet as I just find the doom and gloom before he then reminds me that there is lots of rubbish on the internet because any insane person can write anything they want and pretend to be anyone they want'. However, I did look on LOTS of websites and there were comments from LOTS of different mum's, basically saying how playgroups can be rather terrifying. These are not mum's who shy away from the outside world. One mum wrote about her horrible experience of a a clique playgroups and she was a high flying lawyer who made real baddies weep in the courtroom and, yet, found playgroups rather horrifying as all of the mum's stared at her as she walked in and waited for her to make a mistake.

This does not bode well. For the confident person, they may be able to strike up witty conversation and become the life and soul. For me, it would be like torture! I am not very good with the whole conversation about random things, until I get to know people (and then I can talk about random things for ages!).

However, I then get this feeling of guilt, knowing that Anna would probably love playing with different toys and mixing with different children. So I then start to investigate the different playgroups in my area. I am shocked! There are 6 playgroups within a 10 minute walk of my house. So I now have to choose which one that I will opt for. The choices are varied.

There is a playgroup which is literally 4 doors away from my house. However, this clashes with Jo Jingles which both Anna and I love so not a great choice.

Another playgroup is a 15 minute walk away. The description sounds good with lots of different activities and there is even a photograph to accompany the description. Unfortunately it shows an adult woman playing a guitar and wearing dungarees and a woolly cardigan with a clown on the front of it (not so good). However it does tend to talk about God rather a lot and how it is all one big church family (nothing against church or God but not sure I would win friends when I only attend church once a year)

The playgroup that seems most suitable is actually a toddler group which is held next door to the primary school where Anna will attend. It is also in the same building as the nursery/pre-school that Anna will go to. This seems to make most sense and it would be good to meet other children that may be in the same class as Anna when she is older! The big problem is that it can only go 1 of 2 ways. Either...

Scenario 1:
I meet lots of mum's who I can have a conversation with and who will probably be the same mum's in the playground when Anna goes to school. Therefore Anna has playmates who she will eventually go to school with (making the first day at school a lot less daunting) and I will already know fellow mum's to talk to while we wait for our darling offspring to emerge from the classroom (although I refuse to be one of those mum's who stand on the edge of the playground criticising the teacher for not listening to your child read 8 times per day, as well as listening to the other 30 children in the class and while also trying to teach Numeracy, Literacy, PE, PHSE Geography, History etc etc)

OR

Scenario 2:
I fall flat on my face as I do my normal trick of not being able to think of a thing to say to the fellow mum's until it gets so bad that I can't face another 2 hours of sitting on a hard seat, looking like an idiot. Therefore, I end up never going again but yet I still have to face them all when Anna starts pre-school/school, having made myself look like a right idiot at the toddler playgroup!

Decisions, Decisions!

Hopefully, I am being paranoid about the whole playgroup thing and Anna will love it while I, at least, have nice conversation with other local mum's. Failing that, Anna will probably disown me and ask if she can go to playgroup on her own in future!