My across-the-street neighbor talked me into joining our local MOMS Club with her. We went to a meeting last week, and today was our first big outing: lunch at Red Robin with a bunch of other moms and their kids.

I’m not sure if it’s Cate’s age, or if she’s still traumatized by the move (hasn’t the statute of limitations for move stress expired by now?), or if this is part of her personality, but whenever Cate’s around a large crowd of kids, she tends to freak and get super-clingy. It happens at the gym’s daycare, and in that case it makes sense because she knows I’m going to leave for 45 minutes. But when we’re in a restaurant? And I’m sitting down at a table with her in my lap? Why the need to try to claw up my torso and bury her face in my neck? I don’t get it.

It bothered me more than it should have, probably. I’m sure none of the other moms were judging me, but all of their kids were sitting happily either in high chairs or in booster seats, eating the food on the table in front of them. Cate wouldn’t stop whining long enough to release her death grip on my neck and turn around to see the other children OR the food in front of her, nevermind sitting in her own seat. So it was sort of awkward. “Hi, we’ve never met. I’m Cindy, and this whimpering mound of blonde hair sticking out of my shoulder is my daughter Catie.”

One of the women I met today mentioned that the MOMS Club’s playgroups might be good for us. They divide the kids into appropriate age groups (0-12 months, 12-18 months, 2-3 year-olds, etc.) and have playgroups at a certain club member’s house once a week. She mentioned that if Cate spends enough time around other kids and their moms, eventually she might get used to it and start to relax and be a little more confident in group settings. Maybe she’s right, but I’m scared to think of what kind of horrible impression my child and I might make on these other moms until Cate gets used to them.

But really, we’ve been going outside every day to play with the other kids in the neighborhood, and even though she knows all of them, she still freaks out and clings to me when there are too many kids around, or if they get too loud and rambunctious (like today, when there were about 8 kids jumping in a pile of leaves in one neighbor’s yard). And she hasn’t warmed up to any of the other moms, even though she sees them almost every day.

Part of me just shrugs this off as being part of her personality. She’s always been a snuggler, and she’s always seemed to need a little extra reassurance whenever we’re in a new situation. But sometimes (like when I’m around a whole slew of other kids her age, none of whom are freaking out like she is), I wonder if it’s something that I’m doing wrong. Like maybe there’s something I should be doing to encourage her to be more self-sufficient.

I know this is a phase. It’s not like she’s going to be burying her face in my neck on her first day of college. But I do worry about what happens in the interim. I read blogs by women who have kids that freak out every day over preschool and kindergarten, and I don’t want that for her. I want her to be able to enjoy a wide range of activities without fear or anxiety. I’m just not sure how best to foster her sense of independence.

On Friday, there’s another MOMS Club outing to a local park. I figure that we’ll try it out and see how it goes. Cate generally loves any activities that are outside, so maybe she’ll be fine. Who knows. It’s worth trying, anyway.

I have a feeling that I’ll be doing a lot of these photo entries when I have nothing else to write about for NaBloPoMo. These are some that I took this morning, that I just think are insanely cute.

Cate and I walked to Food Lion this morning for some groceries. We do this at least once a week, when we only need a few things from the store. Cate rides in the stroller, and I put everything in the bottom of the stroller to haul it home. She gets fresh air on our walk, I get some exercise, and it’s environmentally friendly. It’s a win-win-win situation.

After we got home from the store, she ran around in the yard, enjoying the satisfying crunch-crunch-crunch of the leaves under her feet.

Do you see all those leaves? Would you believe that I raked the yard TWICE last week, and it still looks like that? Our next-door neighbors have offered to lend us their leaf blower, probably less from a sense of generosity and more because they don’t want our leaves to end up in their yard. I never understood the purpose of a leaf blower before, but after trying to rake the yard myself multiple times per week and still not staying on top of it? Heck yeah, I’ll gladly borrow that leaf blower, thank you.

But you know, I’ll worry about the yard later. Right now I want to go chase my baby around some more and listen to her fantastic laugh.

1. Playing outside in the yard this morning, Cate walked over to my car and tried to open the driver’s seat door. I opened it for her, she climbed in and started pretending to drive. I know all kids probably do this at some point, but this was a first for us and it cracked me up. Then she saw herself in the vanity mirror, laughed and said, “It’s Catie!!” She doesn’t usually say that to the mirror (or identify herself in the third person), I guess she just wasn’t expecting the vanity mirror to be there.

2. She plays with her toy cell phone a lot, and usually she answers it with “hello?”, then she babbles for a while, and finally says, “ok, bye!” as she hangs up. That’s pretty much a dead-on impression of me on the phone. But after tonight, I’m thinking she has a career ahead of her as an impatient, bossy, high-powered CEO. Her toy cell phone rang, she flipped it open, and barked “WHAT?” into the receiver. Heck yeah, that’s my girl. For the record, I have no idea where that one came from. Yes, the robocalls over the past few weeks really did get on our nerves, but I swear that neither Dave nor I are ever that rude on the phone.

Later, she hit one of the buttons on her phone that played a pre-programmed message. It’s a recorded voice that says, “Hi there! Wanna come out to play?” Cate shrugged and said, “OK.” Totally nonchalant, just yeah, that’s cool, whatever.

3. Tonight after her bath, I brought her into Dave’s office to say goodnight. (Lest you think he’s slaving away working on Sunday night, rest assured that he wasn’t. He was watching TV.) On our way out, she waved and said, “Bye, Daddy! See you! Bah-duboo!” That last word right there is the closest we’ve gotten so far to an “I love you,” and I have to say, that was pretty awesome. I’m only a tiny bit jealous that she said it to Dave first.