1 Mother 2 Another

When Maddie was barely a year old, she met
Naomi on a playground and the rest was history. The girls were
inseparable, playing together EVERY DAY until we moved when Maddie
was two and a half. This sounds small, I know, but three years
later Naomi still begs to see Maddie – and they haven’t
seen each other since we moved.


Even after moving here, we found a circle of friends for Maddie
relatively quickly, thanks to a pre-formed mom’s group in my
neighborhood with kids all the same age, and several kind women
ready to welcome us to their group. By the time Maddie started
kindergarten, she had a solid circle of a half-dozen truly close
friends.


So did Cora. The only problem was that they were all of
Maddie’s friends.

For whatever reason, we had a harder time
making friends Cora’s age. I’m sure I was partly more
focused on finding friends for my grieving three-year-old than for
my eight-month-old baby, but we also just simply happened into
friend’s Maddie’s age more often. Even as Cora got
older, the kids around her were either younger or older. And for
Cora’s part, she’s been very content: she’s happy
to play with “her” friends, who all go to kindergarten
with Maddie, and most of the people at her potty-training party
were all of Maddie’s inner circle. For most of Cora’s
life, she’s simply not had friends she could call her own.


That, fortunately, is beginning to change.


First off, Cora’s had one friend her age – her friend
Ahna. Ahna’s two older sisters are right around
Maddie’s age, so the two families often get together. And
since Maddie started kindergarten we’ve worked hard to give
Cora and Ahna time to play together, just the two of them, every
week. Cora loves it and looks forward to “Ahna Day”.


Second, though, we’re solidly in a church that has lots of
families in our neighborhood. And as painful as the past several
months of trying to deal with separation anxiety were, we’re
finally over that and Cora happily goes to Sunday school –
where she has several friends from our church small group. Add to
that our good friends Sam and Nate – with Nate less than a
year younger than Cora – and we’re starting to see
signs of an actual circle of friends.


Just last week we hit open gym on Wednesdays, as is our habit. Nate
regularly joins us there, and he did on that day. On top of that,
I’d invited a couple friends from my church group and they
both showed up, bringing their girls from Cora’s Sunday
school class with them.


You should have seen Cora’s face light up as she saw all her
friends converging. She ran from Addison to Nate to Isabel,
laughing and hugging, before shouting up to the sky in true
Spartacus-like style, “These are my friends!” The sheer
joy radiating off her rolled over me in waves, making me laugh and
jump with relief right along with her.


They played together most of the time, and when lunch rolled around
we decided to keep the party going at a friend’s house. As we
walked out of the gym Cora was beside herself with excitement.
“Mommy, I’m going to have lunch with all my
friends!” We got in the car and I could hear her bragging to
an imaginary playmate – “Who, those people? Oh,
they’re my friends. Yep, sorry, they’re MY friends!
Yep, you can meet them, sure! They’re my FRIENDS!”


Lunch went well with the girls giggling and acting silly, and we
left for home and quiet time a contented bunch. As Cora got in the
car she turned to me and said, “Mommy, guess what?”
“What, love bug?” I asked as I buckled her in her car
seat.


“I have FRIENDS!” she said, and hugged herself.


My baby’s got a posse!