Though this might seem untrue to people who know me well, I’m naturally an introvert. It’s not that I’m shy per se, I’m just a little slow to warm up. I let others speak first, and I don’t generally jump into conversations with strangers. I’ve worked at overcoming this, because I envy people who easily make small talk and connect with new people quickly. While I try to push myself from introversion to extraversion, at times I just stay in the comfortable quiet, if I’m not feeling up to the mental hurdles that speaking up requires.
Recently however, I’ve been chatting with all kinds of strangers. And that’s because I’m a mother to a pair of baby icebreakers. Sitting in the dining hall of a major retailer, people want to know how old they are, if they’re boys or girls, and ask questions about how we’re feeding them. They say, “You’re not getting much sleep, I guess,” in a sympathetic way, and I reply either a sarcastic, “Ha! I’m sleeping like a log!” or a defeated, “No kidding!”