Miss Lisa's Guide to Surviving a Breakfast Club Meeting of Mothers from Your Kid's School

This week, I was guilted into attending breakfast with some of the other mothers from the school-- not once but twice.  Once for Jacob and once for Benjy.  On consecutive days.  Fortunately, I survived.  This, of course, makes me an expert (as I am on most things), and therefore authorized to write a survival guide.  

So, how can you do it?  Just follow these 8 simple rules:

Rule 1:  Get a job/life.  As with all other bad things in life, the best way to survive it is to avoid it.  All mothers who are gainfully employed outside the home are automatically exempt from attending.  If a job simply doesn't fit into your way of life, you must have an excuse on hand or something vastly more important to do.  You should always have this excuse prepared ahead of time, just in case.  Unfortunately, I was not prepared, and two days notice was an insufficient amount of time for me to get a job or orchestrate a medical emergency that would prevent my presence at the meeting.

Rule 2:  Watch The View.  Breakfast with a group of moms will be just like watching The View.  They will all talk at once (in Spanish, in my case) and will have varying opinions on every topic.  There will be a lot of hugging and kissing, and at least one mom will be unable to dress modestly.  Watching The View will desensitize you to all of this, and no one, no matter what, will be as annoying as Joy Behar.

Rule 3:  Take a small child.  If you don't have your own small child, borrow one.  You undoubtedly know some other mom who could use a break, and who would happily give you her child for an hour or two.  Mine is always at your

Gremlin for rent

disposal.  This is very important.  Even if you will be the only mother brave enough to bring a baby/toddler to the breakfast, you will not regret this decision--even if he hurls all his food to the floor and screams at the top of his lungs to go outside.

Rule 4:  Work the kid.  Adorable children are a great distraction.  The other mothers will be too busy making eyes at him to notice that you have stopped paying attention. (Note: don't worry if you have to borrow an ugly child.  The other mothers will still make eyes at him or her, and they will also be impressed that you took in the little gremlin.)

Rule 5:  Nod and smile.  Even though the breakfast was organized under the pretense that the planning of events will be a group effort, they don't actually want your opinion.  They want you to agree with what they've already agreed upon.  In my case, most of the time I had no idea what was going on anyway, so smiling and nodding was the perfect guise to hide behind.

Rule 6:  Keep your hands down.  No matter how enthusiastic the other mothers sound, under no circumstances should you raise your hand.  If you're not careful, you could find yourself hosting the Halloween party, the Christmas pageant and the Easter social.  When the mama coordinator starts asking for volunteers, that's generally a good time to start looking for that toy that fell under the table.

Rule 7:  Leave early.  This can go down several ways.  You could fake a phone call, pinch the kid until he screams, suddenly come down with food poisoning, develop a nose bleed...  Be creative, but get the heck out of Dodge.  This will enable you to avoid the last round of hugs and kisses and give the other mothers plenty of time to talk about you when you leave.  Believe me, they will like you more for it.

Rule 8:  Treat yourself.  You've been a good mom, and you deserve it.  I recommend ice cream. (Oh, and don't forget to take back that kid you borrowed.)