The Mutual Admiration Society

I just had the most wonderful weekend with my dearest friend Kellie.

Kellie and I went to college together. We admired each other and swirled in overlapping social circles but didn't really become close friends until later. In 2005, we got pregnant within weeks of each other. Around the same time, Daniel and I moved into Philly, just ten minutes from Jeff and Kellie. 

We went through pregnancy together, growing bigger and bigger side by side. We earnestly discussed doctors and midwives, Lamaze breathing and high chairs, sleep philosophies and what kind of mothers we hoped to be. We took long walks in the cool green tunnel of the Wissahickon, and longer walks around the sun-drenched hills of Valley Forge. When our boys were born within weeks of each other, we lined them up side by side on the couch and admired their red squooshy faces and long fingers.

As Jack and Griffin grew, we got together weekly, often more often, and laughed and cried over copious amounts of coffee. We were so sleep-deprived and hormonal the tears came easily, but we took each other's bewilderment, examined it, and gave it back reshaped into something like confidence. 

Jeff named us The Mutual Admiration Society. He said we sounded something like this: "You're wonderful."  "No, you're wonderful."

There were poop-filled rompers in Starbucks, breast-feeding pit stops on random benches, everyday feats of endurance to carry shrieking babies while pushing strollers loaded like pack mules. We shared maternity clothes and postpartum clothes, baby clothes, gear, books, and car seats. We talked about the changing shape of our lives, how to balance career and family and home and marriage while learning to navigate the most all-encompassing role of our lives--motherhood. We were determined to walk out our tiredness and uncertainty and profound, aching love for the little bundles that had come into our lives like hurricanes. We held each other's sweet, adorable, squalling babies and together tried to make sense of the unnerving fact that we were smitten and baffled, in love and enraged, on cloud nine and sapped.

We were comrades down in the trenches, becoming mothers for the first time, together. 

When we got pregnant with number two, again within months of each other, we had our routine down. Even when Daniel and I moved out to Radnor, forty minutes away, we kept up our epic playdates, which usually involved someone arriving at 10am, semi-dressed, bleary-eyed and falling on the coffee pot as if it were an oasis in the desert. The kids would play, nap, eat, cry, hug, jump, nap again. Around 5pm, we'd realize we hadn't had enough of each other and we'd call the hubbies to inform them dinner was moved to a new location and could they order pizza? We'd sit around the table in a crashing whirl of baby and toddler mayhem, chatting and laughing and feeling somewhat normal. 

Both pregnant: first trimester and about to pop!

 The second set of boys: Graham and Owen!


  

How could I have become a mother without this wise, calm, encouraging, hilarious, down-to-earth, laid-back, sensitive, compassionate, and beautiful friend? Kellie is one of the best listeners I've ever met, and her wit, kindness, and authenticity make everyone around her feel more alive.

This weekend we came together at the cusp of another milestone: all of our boys are starting full-time school. We each have a second grader and kindergartener, and they're all in Spanish immersion charter schools. Crazy. We talked long and hard about this new stage and all the excitement and ambivalence it holds. I am beyond grateful for this strong friendship, that has stretched like elastic across the miles between Philly and Denver. The Mutual Admiration Society is in full force, and I feel incredibly blessed to have this phenomenal woman in my life.