31 Days Embracing Motherhood: When You’re Not Alone

Everyday I make a thousand tiny decisions.  Some are big and affect more than just the faces around my dinner table at night. Most aren’t.

Most of my decisions like what to have for dinner, which coupon deals to grab, how to style Amelia’s hair are simple choices I make everyday and can usually do without a lot of advice.

But sometimes…sometimes I need to know I’m not the only one struggling with how to decide what’s best for  my family.  I need to know I’m not alone in my quest to have my kids eat more vegetables, my baby sleep through the night, my jeans to fit again.

One of my great blessings of motherhood is my mommy friends.  Lately, friendships aren’t defined by the years we’ve known each other, the schools we may or may not have attended together, the church where we fellowship.  Instead, I find my best and closest friends right now have toddlers who are delighted to be tinkling on the potty, first graders who sometimes venture past “green is good”, or babies who prefer their milk straight from the source and 98.6 degrees, thank you very much.

We’re friends because we empathize, we totally 100% get why there is Pop-Tart on your shoulder and spit up on your shoes, and we DVR shows on girls’ nights so we can wait until everyone has put the kids to bed before getting together.  We’re friends because we’ll share a homemade casserole or a really good bottle of wine when someone’s having a bad day and sometimes even when they’re not.

We’re friends because motherhood brought us to each other.

And as I get older and farther from the person I was in high school or college, I find myself coming back full circle to those friends who mattered so much then. Now my facebook message account fills with group messages from girls I shared dorms and cafeterias with, girls whose closets I’ve ransacked, girls who knew me when I was going to change the world in an inner-city school.

Girls who now have two year olds and pregnant bellies and questions about vaccines and breastfeeding and carseats.  So now we’re more than roommates and alumni, we’re mothers together.

It’s a blessing to share the journey.

Friend, I hope you have someone to share your motherhood trials and tribulations with, but if you don’t, I hope you’ll visit here often and drop me a line or two about how I can support you.  

For all my 31 Days posts venture over here.