I'm Just Surviving

A mommy friend of mine introduced me to another mommy friend of hers recently by inviting us to her house for a wine-pairing dinner. She knew that both her friend and her husband, and my husband and I are into drinking good wines. She pre-empted the invite by saying that she's more than willing to put on a kids DVD to keep the kids busy if necessary so that we can actually have a decent dinner. We all have a 3-year-old. She also has twins that are 1.5 years old and her friend has a 4-5 month old baby. Well, we have a 9 month-old boy. So we all knew perfectly well that we can never really have a dinner that is "about us." But we could darn well try. So surprisingly, that dinner went smoothly. Each couple presented some wines that paired with the appetizer, entree, and dessert that the hostess made. We even had time to enjoy the dessert wine. So recently, I thought that we should host a dinner. I figured that it'd be relatively easy: one couple would bring a dessert and wine(s) to match, another couple would bring appetizers and wine(s) to match. So we only had to provide some food for the preschoolers and toddlers and an entree for everyone else. I had chosen a pork tenderloin recipe that we had made before and would be relatively easy to grill up. But it didn't quite go as well as planned. I thought I'd cook while the kids napped. They didn't nap much. So I spent the first hour after the guests arrived cooking. The guests themselves were pretty tired/frazzled themselves. One family went to the beach earlier during the day but none of the kids napped. The other couple hardly slept the night before because their baby woke up numerous times. We had the same issue with Elliot waking up multiple times the night before. While I was in the kitchen, my husband walked by with Elliot. I asked him how it was going. His reply was a terse "I'm just surviving." My mommy friend was standing next to me doing something with the dessert dish and happened to catch the exchange. She commented to me that she and her husband had a similar exchange that morning. She had asked him why he wasn't talking to her and if he was mad at her. His only reply was that he was "just surviving and trying to get through the morning." I thought it was comical that we have a similar state of disrepair in our marital communications. After the craziness subsided a bit and we all actually had a chance to sit down and eat dinner and enjoy the wine that went with it, we started talking about warning couples expecting children how rough life can be. I brought up that we had visited a college friend in the city the day before and they had announced that they're expecting a baby. My mommy friend asked if we told them about how tough life would be after kids come. They just had a couple of friends visit them the day before who were also expecting their first child. My friend's husband told them about the whole labor process and all the unpleasantries. My response was that I didn't want to be a killjoy. It would probably have been more appropriate if I had brought it up before my college friend's wife got pregnant. But I remember how happy/exciting the first pregnancy can be. I wouldn't want to rain on their parade. Are we a jaded group of parents or what?