I have always wanted to be a mother. It was a goal/dream in my mind along with many other dreams and goals. When I found out I was having the little guy I was so excited, scared and overwhelmed. Now he is almost two and I have no idea where the time has gone. The first year and a half or so it was pretty much me and the Doctor. I didn't really have any close friends who still lived in Chico and it was starting to get to me.
Being a mother is different than being a father. I was feeling so lost and in need of some girl time. So I started looking for a moms group. I never really saw myself as the moms group type but I didn't know what else to do because I was going crazy and I wanted the little guy to be able to play with other kids. I kept searching and searching and I finally posted something on craigslist. I got one response and we had coffee while the kids played. About a week later meetup.com informed me that a moms group had just started. So relieved, I told the other woman I had met for coffee to join to.
In the beginning we were small...basically three of us. Now there are 97 moms in our group! I have met some of the most amazing mothers and I feel so blessed to be friends with these women. We are all very different, with different backgrounds, different religious beliefs, some of us work, some of us are work from home mothers and some of us are just home with our kids, married, single but we are all mothers and that is what makes it work. We all understand how hard it is and that some days you just need someone to listen to you who has been through it. Husbands are great for listening too but there is something about sharing with another mother...she has a different incite.
One of the other moms in the group has a son 6 days younger than the little guy. She has been a blessing for our family. Our children are going through all the same phases close to the same time and its so nice for me and Gnar to have a best friend. I feel so lucky to be connected with a spiderweb of mothers all with different areas of expertise. We mostly go to parks with the kids, take walks, hang out at each others houses, and go to story time at the library, but also now have moms night out! I didn't realized how important it is to get away from your children for just for a few hours every once in awhile. We all (not all 97 of us, just 6) went out together last weekend. I had so much more fun going out with these girls than I ever did before baby. Its a different kind of going out of course but so much more fun!
I just had a few moms over this morning to hang out and talk chickens. A couple other moms are getting chickens this year so I wanted to get together with them and share info. I also wanted to let the kids see the baby chicks. I almost cancelled this morning because yesterday when I went grocery shopping in the crazy 50mph winds with a toddler, I messed up my neck trying to carry to much stuff at once. I was being silly...trying to pick up the little guy (30 pounds now) out of a cart with a firelog (super heavy) and other groceries, he of course locked he feet into the cart and I wrenched my neck. I just didn't want to deal with the cart in the crazy wind.
I was in a lot of pain this morning but I pushed through and used my Dustbuster instead of sweeping (my house is pretty much always a mess of kids toys everywhere). I'm so glad I had them over, it was worth them seeing my messy house. Talking up a storm I forgot that my neck hurt and was able to relax a little. Its not all better yet but its much better than it was this morning. If I had just been here with the little guy playing...I would have been thinking only of the pain. I guess what I am getting at is I'm very thankful for the mothers in my life, my grandmother, my mother, my mother-in-law and all the mothers in my moms group.
This is one of my fav mothering pictures.
