On Behalf of Stay At Home Parents Who Get Really Lonely

I have a lot of friends. It's kind of awesome. I have an amazing circle of friends from church, and I'm really close to a lot of people from my theatre company. As a performing arts educator, when I'm working I'm surrounded by people. People who share my interests. People who look up to me. (Figuratively speaking. Unless I'm teaching babies. Then they look up to me literally.)

But here's the thing. I'm a freelancer. So I'm not always working. In fact, I can go months without a major project. And during those months, I am terribly, terribly lonely.

I have often used this blog as a forum for speaking out on behalf of Stay At Home Parents. So here we go again. If you're friends with a SAHP- and I mean really good friends, not just acquaintances- we need you. And I'm not gonna lie. It's gonna be a lot of work for you. And it's probably gonna inconvenience you. But we need you anyway.

We need you to communicate with us on an adult level throughout the day. We need you to send us a text or an email or give us a call, just to see how we're doing. Let us know you're thinking of us. We need you to understand when we send a lot of silly messages that we're bored and we need company. And we need you to come visit us. Because we can't just meet you for lunch or a drink the way we used to. We need you to come over so we can watch Sesame Street while we talk about grown-up things. And we need you to understand that while we're talking about these grown-up things, it might seem like we're distracted because every third or fourth word will be interrupted by "Lily, no! Get down!" But we promise we are paying attention, and we need this conversation.

Now. For those of you who read my blog who know me personally, please don't try to play detective and figure out what happened to inspire this message. Nothing happened. I promise. And if you're one of my friends who does send me messages and does come to Connecticut to visit and is willing to pick up the front end of the stroller so we can get on the subway- because I absolutely do have those people in my life- thank you. Noted. I promise.

But somewhere in my life I seem to have become the girl who says things that other people won't say. (Somewhere during elementary school, I think. Maybe earlier.) And I've had this conversation with so many friends who are also parents. (And it's tough for us to keep each other company, because we're all working on different nap schedules...)

So. On behalf of the Stay At Home Parents Who Get Really Lonely. Be a pal. Keep us company.