Our Friends

A few weeks ago, Julia and Seth and Sarah came over for dinner and a little quality time. It was one of those nights when I was reminded just how amazing our circle of friends is. Hold on, I'm going to get pretty mushy here.

As Pat and I worked on throwing together dinner, Julia, Seth, and Sarah were in the playroom with Evy. Every so often they broke into song - serenading Evy with the Beatles, singing "Over the Rainbow" with her, or creating a soundtrack to whatever she was playing with. I could hear the eruption of toddler belly laughs. Oh how she adores Sa-ah and Jooya and Seph. (I have a feeling it's mutual.)

And I am so so grateful for the relationships my daughter is building with our friends.

To be honest, I wasn't sure what would happen to our friendships when we had a baby. We were the first among our local friends to become parents, and I'd heard nothing but negative stories about how friendships change once you become a parent. I worried that we'd lose some friends as we adapted to life with a little one.

But I forgot - these are our friends we're talking about.

Our friends are full of love and awesome. Truly.

They didn't leave us behind. They opened up the circle and pulled our daughter in. They pile on the love. They are funny and goofy and sweet with her. Friends near and far have treated our daughter with such kindness that it almost makes my heart hurt to think about. They come over to read books and color, they send her postcards and sweatshirts in the mail, they spend evenings having Facetime pizza parties with her, they make her laugh and laugh.

Someday, when she's a teen and mad at me for something, I know she'll be able to call Sarah or Julia or Beth or Janet or Grace or Seth or any number of our friends. They'll take her out for coffee and commiserate about how hard it is to be a teenager ( and maybe stick up for me a little?).

And, not that there's any pressure for anyone else to start having babies, but- I love being able to pile on the same kind of love as more little ones are born into our sweet, fun, wacky circle.