Coffee with mums and bubs

There are times in my life when it's driven home to me that I'm the odd one out. This morning was one of those times. I'd always known it, but I was reminded of it again.

I met up with someone I'd known from school and had made contact with on Facebook. She is living near me and is now married with three kids. We were in very different crowds at school, but I was looking forward to catching up with her, even if I wondered what we might have in common these days. Very little, it would seem.

The Empire is just down the road from me. While their hot chocolates taste like dish water, their coffee is usually ok. Today it was was full of mums chasing bubs in and out of the front doors to the bus stop in the rain. What fun. In between, they would retrieve toddlers from behind the counter, rescue spoons and other cutlery that somehow ended up being inserted into a toy box or down the side of the couch, all the while sipping their morning lattes and having stilted conversations that were each two sentences long before having to repeat the entire scenario. What surprised me was that the person I was meeting seemed to know almost every mum and bub there by name and disposition and seemed completely at home in this environment. Scary.

So, we proceeded to catch up on the last 15 years or so and fill each other in on people we'd both known from school and what everybody was up to. Here's how the stories went:

She: Oh, and I caught up with [insert name here] the other day.
Me: Wow - it's been ages. I bumped into her years ago and we had [coffee/a drink]. What's she up to these days?
She: She just had her second [baby/daughter/son.]. She and her [husband/partner] just bought a house in [enter suburb/street here]
Me: Oh, [another one] lives just over the road. She has a [one/two/three-year old] [son/daughter] and another on the way. She married a good friend of mine.
She: And [name]. She was never going to have kids, but she had a baby [boy/girl] four days ago.
Me: Geez.
She: Yeah. She and [name] were always like that. [Name] was worried she'd die an old spinster, but she finally got her man and they just bought a house in [suburb/street].
Me: Oh, I'd wondered what she was doing.
She: We were both bridesmaids at [name]'s wedding last year. Their baby is due in [month]. [Name] and I are going to drop off some of my baby stuff for her, cos [two/three/four] kids is enough, lol!

And so on. I spent most of the conversation desperately trying to think of who else we knew from school had married and had babies and was worried I didn't have enough to contribute. I even resorted to talking about my two-month-old nephew (whom I adore), just to have something of my own to add to the conversation! How sad is that??