Making Mom Friends

I love the website Mompetition and agree that it is really hard to make mom friends.  I think the biggest issue, which leads to the competition between moms, is respect.  If you respect someone, you will respect their choices, and, even if you hold a different opinion, you would do so respectfully. (R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means to me).

I have begun to chronicle on this blog my attempts to make mom friends with limited time (must.finish.dissertation.) and after having moved.  I have received the following advice from moms in my yahoo group for my neighborhood and from FB friends, and I am going to try and embrace them.

1. Go to the local parks and if another mom is by herself with her kid, talk to her, exchange info, make plans.
2.  Set up a play group which alternates between homes.
3. Make a book club.
4. Best way to publicize the above? Flyers in mailboxes, on telephone polls, and, if you are so lucky, yahoo groups. I had one when we lived in the Big City and there is also a yahoo group for my smaller town.
5. Join local mom and me groups. I have mentioned on here the free classes at our local library that Q and I attend.
6. Key for all of the above: put yourself out there. This is where I am falling down. I'll say hi and make idle chit chat. I even tried to schedule some meet ups at the local pool at the beginning of the summer, but never made plans with anyone to meet anywhere else or more often.
7.  I have also been promised that moms understand that you might fall off the face of the planet for a while and they do not mind, so even if it has been a few months, call or email!
8. What I have found most successful? Make a blog. Write a post about how you have no local friends. Put up on your local yahoo board. I have not only received suggestions, but also invites to play groups and to meet up mom-to-mom.

Good luck. It is a jungle out there.