Meet Kelly and her daughter Maeve. Kelly and I go back to grade 11, where I was always jealous of her gorgeous hair and musical talents and we also fought over the same boy. Being a small high school, we both ran with the art crowd and shared many friends. I remember several parties where one of us for sure would be sulking in a corner mouthing the words to “You Oughta Know.” In the end, we both lost the boy and parted ways. Feelings were so hard that we didn't even sign each others' yearbooks (and in the realm of all things high school, that is the biggest slight).
Shortly after moving back I literally ran into Kelly. She was walking with her adorable sleeping daughter down the main street of town. (Not entirely true – we saw her the previous week while she was performing at the Farmers' Market and Mr. P was laughing at the scandalous boyfriend fight stories I was telling him when he asked who the knockout with the guitar was). I was terrified – would she remember the 17-year-old angst-addicted me? When I told her that was my biggest worry we both laughed – and haven't stopped laughing since.
Ends up that we have more in common than we ever thought, which in some ways really does make motherhood a great equalizer. Like me, Kelly had a C-section and left her career to raise Maeve. But where we differ is Kelly is a talented crocheter and over coffee and scones and sleeping babies, taught me how to get past foundation rows. And I am making it my duty to make sure Maeve gets sticky and dirty so that Kelly can overcome her fear of gross babies. Both of my kids adore Maeve and Kelly – and Gillian and Maeve are especially cute in the berry patch. It blows my mind to think that we've gone from an almost Mean Girls-like adolescence to swapping breastfeeding and poop stories and that I count her as one of my dearest found-again friends.
Being stay-at-home moms also leaves us in the same panicked position of worrying too much about money. Earlier this spring I was offered a weekend job of cleaning at a resort in town, so most weekends I'll be scrubbing loos (Dirty Jobs – SAHM Edition will be the topic of another blog post). Since loo scrubbing is not on the list of hot must-have summer jobs, there are always opportunites for work. This weekend Kelly and I will team up to scrub loos together, which amazes me more than the fact that I covet her sparkly Katy Perry nail polish.
