We’ve known each other since August of 1998 when my dad helped her dad put up the loft in her dorm room on the third floor of Morton-Lemley Hall.  Her room was next door to mine and we wore a path between the two. 

The next year we moved to the first floor with less room and a better view of the volleyball court.  We lived together until the day I got married and she went home to student teach.

Life happened and while I was learning to balance motherhood and a career, she was advancing hers and having all sorts of adventures that sometimes made me jealous.  And when the timing was right, I got to stand beside her in a little white church on a sea swept island and realize I wasn’t her best friend anymore.  He was.  And that’s how it should always be.

They made a home and a life that was theirs and when I had to tell her I was pregnant again, she rejoiced despite her own unrealized hope.

This summer she came and spent a few days with me and the girls and she left, shaking her head and saying, “Maybe I’m not ready for this after all.”

But, yes she is.  Brooke and Matt and all of us who love them are now counting the days until the arrival of Leah Kate in March.  Brooke will celebrate her birthday this year by becoming a mom and though it’s been a long journey, I know she believes the timing is just right.

Surrounded by friends who have already started down this road, she has been blessed with gifts galore and has been promised that if she needs it, we’ve got it.  But more importantly, she has something I never had when I first brought home that tiny pink baby. 

Mommy friends.  The ones who completely understand how a seven-pound angel can completely unhinge your sanity.  The ones who will bring you dinner and fold a basket of laundry and leave without ever holding the new baby because she was sleeping they they won’t dare wake her.  They’ll just come back tomorrow with another casserole and offer to hold her even though she’s screaming so you can take a shower.

In college, we sat up all night studying, watching Friends and Gilmore Girls, eating ice cream, and planning my wedding. 

Now we call each other before nine o’clock because bedtime comes early, we plan get togethers weeks in advance so I can arrange babysitting, and we’ve traded the ice cream for coffee with plenty of cream.

And soon she’ll know she can call me in the middle of the night when the baby isn’t sleeping because fourteen years of friendship has that privilege.  And I can’t wait.