I was out at dinner with my family a couple days ago and four adults were sitting at the next table over, conversing about movies and books and society. For the first time since my son was born, I realized that I miss that flavor of conviviality.

Of course I love my kid more than anything in the world, but I also enjoy conversation that consists of more than “The potty IS a good place for poop!” and “I don’t know why Winnie the Pooh has a grumbly voice.”

To be fair, my kid and I actually have some solid commute conversations, but they’re still not the same as chatting with friends about pop culture and the world.

(Does this post - or my others about parenthood - mean I’m a mommy blogger now? When I was pregnant, my friend Whitney asked, jokingly, if I was going to become a mommy blogger once I had my kid and I was all, “Haha no!” But did I? Jenny Lawson and Heather B. Armstrong are considered mommy bloggers and I really like them, so I’m going to rock it, if that’s who I am now.)

We went to lunch with a friend of my son’s and her parents after the preschool Halloween party today. I thought, This will be great! The kids will entertain each other and we can have grown up talk!

Reader, that is not what happened.

Honestly, though, being a parent seems to mean being really behind on pop culture, so what would I even talk about besides either my kid or my work? And it turns out most people aren’t interested in talking about the spread of ethnography as a methodological approach beyond the field of anthropology, so work’s not great for much conversation, either.

My kid is so cute, though.