Today we went to our friends’ son’s first birthday party. He was born 11/11/11, about 3 weeks before our little guy was. Our husbands grew up across the street from each other and have known each other since they were little boys. All 3 of them went to the same high school in fact!
These are the closest friends we have, and some of the few we have. Their wedding in May 2008 was the last date my husband and I went on! They were also the friends that saved our tushies.
In April of 2008, we sold our house and built a lot. We rented a house, signing a 6-month lease with the understanding that it may be up to a year before our house was complete (the builder said December but I wasn’t holding my breath.) In August I became pregnant with our second child, and short after that, I was told that they were selling the house & we needed to move out!
When I did some research, I found out that the landlord hadn’t been paying the mortgage for quite some time, and was likely using our rent payment to pay the mortgage on his 5,000 sqft house in a pricey area of the state. In fact, I now always tell people who are thinking of renting from an individual, to see if you can search your state’s judicial records. If I had, I would have seen that there was already a foreclosure in process when we signed our lease.
Anyhoo, I may or may not have freaked out and used my crazy pregnant lady voice on their real estate agent when he told us we had to move out in November, and that we had to allow them to show the house at any time until then. We didn’t know if it would be a month or three months before our house was complete, and we had a heck of a time finding someone who would allow less than a 12 month lease. I was already not happy about having to pack and move TWICE, but now I had to do it THREE times, twice while pregnant, and I had no idea where we were going to go.
Our friends owned a home that was built in the 1800’s, and was set up perfectly for use as a duplex. They allowed us to rent from them, and we had our junk crammed in every nook and cranny of their house. There was one functioning bathroom upstairs on their side, with 4 adults (two of us were pregnant) and 1 child. It was quite an adventure, with our hubbies laying on dirt in the crawl space with my hair dryer melting pipes when they froze one week, and everyone ice skating to their cars another week. They tolerated me when I freaked.out. after dropping the cupcakes I was craving, in a pile of dog hair in the mud/laundry/entry area. When my daughter broke a window they refused to let us pay for it, saying that they were replacing the windows anyway. I just wanted to be SURE we were out before their baby was born.
My daughter’s birthday was February 6th, and our friends’ baby was due in March. We NEVER went ANYwhere…like EVER. They always knew where to find us. For her birthday, my daughter decided she wanted to go swimming, so we went and stayed at a local Homewood Suites with a pool, and went swimming! We came home to a note on the door that our friend’s water had broken and they were at the hospital!!
She was born early but totally fine, and we didn’t end up moving out until March. We shared meals together, spent time together, and while I do love having our own space now, I miss getting to see them every day.
On my daughter’s 6th birthday in 2011, she got a second cousin (the number of shared birthdays and holiday birthday in our family is crazy…in fact, my husband’s nephew was born on my 29th birthday, so I gave him mine and remain 29, hee hee.) On her 5th birthday in 2010, she got a blizzard!
We got a huge dumping of snow, and were one of the very few people to make it to their daughter’s first birthday party, since it was just over the mountain from us…then we got another huge dumping of snow!
Anyhoo, today I couldn’t believe it had been so many years since all the things I’ve been blabbing about, and their son’s hesitant poking the cake icing & his half disgusted/half intrigued faces totally reminded me of his sister.
Why do the days seem to long but the years are so short?
Maria wants to live in a world where cloth diapers are the norm and moms can make parenting choices without judgement. When she’s not chasing her 18, 14 and 11-year old kids around, you might find her checking out the latest gadgets, organizing something (again) or exercising in the fresh air. 
