Girls’ Night In

Last night one of my friends stayed over with her two kids, as Casey was working unusually late and  I was in need of some “girl time.”   This friend of mine is a super hero, as far as I’m concerned.   Not only does she have two adorable kids, a boy who’s almost 4 and a girl who is 9 months old, but she is a self employed  entrepreneur  and  handles all this  while living on a houseboat!   And she’s one of the most joyful  people I know.

So we had a slumber party of sorts last night… ok, I really was going to spike the chocolate milkshakes…   But after dinner and battling Dudley in his glee over not one, but TWO babes in highchairs flinging food, then playtime, storytime, warm milk and blanket time, then “where is my Teddy Bear?” time:

Oh… there he is… …

and  then taking  two and a half hours to get three little ones to sleep in the same house while still reasonably close to bedtime proximity, we felt practically drunk anyway.

It was so good to just  sit and talk.   To complete sentences and continue in a train of thought.   We didn’t complain about our bodies, gossip about other women, whine about husbands, lament about kids or mothers or mothers-in-law… we just … talked.  

Nights  like that remind me that we were created to live in community with each other.   We are created to need each other, and also to fulfill the vast array of roles we are created for: wife, daughter, mother, sister, aunt, friend, colleague, neighbor.

We aren’t created to “do it all” or be self-sufficient.   Why do we try so hard to prove to others (who?) that we don’t need help in living out the everyday?   We don’t have the benefit, most of us, of living in the same town where we grew up, and where our Mothers grew up before us, where we know everyone and where there are several grandmas, aunts or cousins to watch the kids so that we can go to the grocery store and not wreck a fragile nap schedule.  

After the night of fun, Kenny slept like a rock and woke up so happy I almost didn’t want to inturupt the animated banter he was having with the stuffed lobster in his crib this morning.   I peeked my head around the corner, and he stood up with such  enthusiasm at seeing my face, that he let loose an enormously impressive  explosion of gas.

At least I can’t blame a spiked milkshake…