Mixed Bag Of Rant

Being a new mom in a new neighborhood is hard. Being a full-time working mom in a new neighborhood is hard. Outside of the kids in my own family, we have struggled to make friends with other families with kids Jack’s age. We really like our across the street neighbors- their daughter is Jack’s age- but they are often busy with their own friends and own lives.

Jack goes to an awesome daycare and has many friends there. Many of the other parents we see on the fly and barely have time for a polite hello let alone actually figuring out what their first names are (most are known as “Brooke’s Mommy” or “Nathan’s Mommy and Daddy”). Jack has had one particular best friend at daycare ever since he was an infant. Him and Andrew used to lay next to each other on the playmat as babies and just laugh and laugh and laugh. They are so close of friends that they can’t even transition to the next room without each other (it was attempted once and was a disaster). Now that the boys are a little older and can actually talk and express themselves, they often talk about wanting to play at each others houses. At a child/parent breakfast, my husband and I sat with Andrew and his daddy and talked about how we knew we didn’t have many birthdays left without their friends from school.

We finally decided to make the first move and leave a note for Andrew’s mommy and daddy on his daily chart. Much to our surprise, they immediately responded and we set up a playdate right away. So far, we have gotten down on our hands and knees to clean our house, worried about what food to grill for dinner (do they even like food on the grill??), wondered what they do for a living and if we would have anything in common. Most importantly, we realized that we are NERVOUS. This is our little boy’s best friend we are talking about! We have to make sure that we get along with these folks as these kids will likely be in school together for a long time.

It feels exactly like a first date.