A First Name Basis

I consider myself a fairly socially capable person. I'm not overly social, I'd actually prefer to be at home most of the time. But put me in nearly any social situation and I can hold my own. I can carry on a conversation with a stranger, even if I have nothing in common with them. I can chat with a random old lady at the grocery store who was admiring my baby. It's fine, I'm good. I don't even mind talking to these people. I can usually even make them laugh with some random witty remark, cause you know, I'm funny like that.

Even though I'm pretty sociable, I don't really have tons of *friends. I have friends, but I never hang out with them cause I don't go out of my way to see people, like ever. So usually I just hang out with my husband, cause he is here at my house already. Or my sister, cause she is the only person I ever go out of my way to see. But other people I only see occasionally. It's not that I don't like people, I just don't know that many people who I have that much in common with.

Enter: kindergarten. Alana makes friends easily. And with those friends come a convenient accessory: moms. Moms who I have at least one thing in common with: a kindergartener. Moms with an average age of 25-35. I fit right in the middle there. I pick Alana up from school everyday, which gives me about 10 minutes of standing outside of her class while Ava plays. There are other moms there, although I think most of the kids ride the bus. I talk and make conversation with these moms and its my perfect opportunity to socialize. I've established at least a casual friendship with them.

The only roadblock: I don't really know people's names. And they don't know mine. I know kid's names, if Alana has told me who they are. Or I looked on her class picture to see who is who and what their last name is. Since I'm not "from" Benson and didn't go to high school here, I went to the oh so distant "town" of St. David, I don't know most of the people. But David does. The people who I've managed to assign a name to the face of are people who David knows, so he told me their name. Other than that, they are "so and so's mom."

At some point, probably pretty soon cause it's only going to grow increasingly awkward, I should breach the topic of names. Like I didn't catch your name by the way mine is Jennifer and our kids will probably go to school together for the next 13 years cause I have no intention of ever moving away. You know, somewhere along those lines. Before it gets too awkward.