Monday, September 24, 2012

Like speed dating for moms

In an effort to meet some other moms that live close by I attended my first MOPS (mothers of pre-schoolers) meeting last Thursday night. There are a few MOPS groups in the area as well as a Moms Club that is setup through our homeowners association. I basically picked one of the groups that meets the closest to my house at a local Baptist church.

I did email a few times with the coordinator prior to the meeting to get some initial information. The main thing I wanted to know was if I needed to be a member of the church to join the group. Fortunately I don't. Nothing against the Baptist religion but I don't plan to start going to a Baptist church just to join a mom group.

I was a bit nervous before the meeting, thinking that everyone there would already know each other or that I would be the only heathen that doesn't attend that church. It almost felt like walking into some AA meeting.

They had us assigned to a specific table/discussion group so I didn't get to personally meet everyone there. There were also quite a few moms missing because it happened to also be back-to-school night. The girls at my table were all very nice. Two of them were also there for the first time and pretty shy/quiet. Thanks to my sorority rush days I actually did okay with starting and contributing to the conversation at my table. We watched a DVD and did a little craft while going over the discussion questions that were passed out.

Of all the girls I met I would say there was one that was at my table that I seemed to hit it off with the most and that I could see potentially hanging out with again. It also sounded like our spouses had stuff in common as well which is helpful.

I haven't decided 100% if I plan to keep going back all year but I do plan to go to at least one more meeting (the topic next month is budgeting/couponing, which I want to learn more about anyway). Hopefully I'll get a chance to talk to more of the women there and see if I hit it off with anyone else. I'm also debating if I should check out one of the other MOPS groups in my area and see if there is anyone there I click with. Is it wrong to be part of more than one MOPS group?

It's a little awkward just walking into a group of women and basically being like "here I am, be my friend" but I guess in a lot of ways that's what I did with the sorority and that turned out great and I still have good friends I made there. So as of now I wouldn't say that I'm totally on board with the whole MOPS thing but I'm willing to continue to keep an open mind about it.

10 comments:

Stephanie said...

I think it sounds great! Since I'm a new follower, I don't know your background, but are you a SAHM? I've found that all the MOPS group in our area meet during the week and during the day, so I haven't been able to attend one yet. Did the kids go too and play in their own area, or just the mom's? I don't think it's bad to join more than one group, the more the merrier!

Unknown said...

You are brave! Dont know that I could have done that myself.

Mrs EyeCanSee said...

I'm with Kristen, I don't know that I could have gone alone!

I feel like I get less and less brave at meeting new people as I get older.

Sounds like it could be a good way to meet a mom friend or two though!

Jamie said...

I thought mops was a church thing. Were there other non- churchers there? Maybe I should check it out

Fiona said...

Good for you for giving it a try!! It sounds great. I am actually so jealous because I wish we had things like that in my area. I would love to meet other moms. Hope you are able to make some good friends through it!

Venassa said...

I'm not good at these types of situations at all. Good luck to you though. Hopefully you can find at least a couple of lasting friendships out of it.

Kristen said...

Sounds interesting!

I don't think that we have any MOPS groups in our area :( It would be a great place to make friends. Making friends as an adult is so much harder!

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Stephanie said...

I'm so glad you went! I hope it works out for you and you make at least 1 new friend!

Karen said...

I used to love MOPS when I was a stay at home mom. It was 3 hours of me time to talk to other moms and relax. Our MOPS had a wonderful nursery program with pagers and our little ones were loved on by a bunch of Grandmas from the church while I got a little break. I miss MOPS! Go a coupe more times before making a final decision.