Cutting Teeth
A single thread connects these thirty-some year-old parents together. Belonging to the same playgroup, they’re hoping that somewhere in this friendship they find acceptance. Someone that will accept them, will all their quirks and their issues, where their children can play with others and they themselves will be someone besides a mommy and a daddy. I had to laugh at this playgroup, as the characters were so different from one another. I love diversity but only if it works for everyone and in this group, it was working until Nicole invited them all to her parent’s home, her childhood home, for the weekend. Some people are nice for a while but when you are with them too long, their true colors come out. For this group, it didn’t take long and their true colors came flying out. These parents thought they had their own secrets, but as the weekend progressed, words were spoken and eyes were opened. It was like reality TV. Nicole, the published novelist brings the playgroup with their parents and their significant others to the shabby ocean beach house and from the moment she arrives, she wonders why she invited everyone. With her OCD getting the best of her, I realize she’s in trouble. She won’t be able to rely on her truckload of emergency supplies for the supposedly end-of-the-world disaster that’s arriving this weekend to give her the comfort she needs this weekend. The other guests have personal issues they are trying to keep under safe keeping this weekend, but anything goes by the time everyone packs up and leaves. Tenzin, a Tibet nanny who arrives with one of the guest stole my heart. I loved her stories and her view of the guests as she tends to all the children. As Tenzin listens to the stories of all the adults in the cabin, she sees how complicated their life is and how they created their own lives to reflect that way of life. Its Tenzin way of not judging others but observing the guests as she moves about the story that gives her a warmth and caring personality.
