Motherhood - the greatest equalizer?

 

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.