A shout out to my sistahs

The kindness of my womenfolk cannot be underestimated. It's funny because I was one of those twits who spent her whole life pining for "the man." For the entirety of my singledom,  my female friendships were only with other single woman and we spent 100% of our time yearning for men. (((sigh))))  Today, even married to the right man, my girlfriends are so much more fun than my relationship with with my husband, and in fact save me from imploding my marriage.

Women need women... bad. It was necessary that we all shared our desperate achings for men back then. And now that I'm a mother, all my friendships are only with other mothers and all we talk about is how to survive mommyhood. (OH, and how hard marriage is with children.)

Women have this cool knack of magnetizing to one another to get exactly what we need. The universe conspires to our advantage if we all just admit to one another that this motherhood thing is kicking our asses: that days can be really, really long, and that we need help! Help me! Help me! Help me! Where do I find size 7 diapers? What should I do with my teething infant? Where'd you get that perfect sippy cup that doesn't leak or mold? How do you get your child to keep his sun hat on? Are there any shoes that actually stay on your baby's feet? The list of urgently needed answers goes on ad nauseum.  

This post was spurred by an ordinary chain of events that culminated in a mundane miracle in the life of a mommy. The miracle was that on a rainy day when we desperately needed something, anything inside and stimulating to do: we found a $5 open gym day just minutes away from home. It was marvelous. It was magical. Tons of super happy kids frolicking in a ginormous padded room. G didn't stop running and jumping for the entire hour. N was blissed out just watching the whole thing go down from his vantage point down on the mats.

The ordinary chain of events went something like this: While sitting at the fountain feeding N applesauce and trying to keep G from jumping in headfirst, I bumped into a fellow mommy of two. Due to the minute period of time either of us would have for conversation while watching our charges, she immediately began reciting a litany of new cheap entertainment finds she'd encountered, one being this open gym. Note to self: remember this one. Three days later I was checking my email and found that a mommy group I peripherally participate in was meeting at that same gym on said rainy day. Voila. Done dealio. Through the non-stop networking of mommies, we had a date.

Aren't women the best? By getting a cute new cut and wearing it out to playgroup, we stealthily spread the word about a great new stylist at Supercuts : 15 minutes and 18 bucks later you too can be out the door with a clean new 'do, after 10 months of overgrowth due to new baby lockdown. By wearing a killer new hat on a bad hair day to the playground, we graciously tip our fellow mommies off to the ultimate multitasking feat: combining a trip to the zoo for the kiddies with shopping (!) at that hidden gem of a gift shop that actually has good fashion. And finally, when I've lost all sense of humor and just become one big furrowed brow, one of my homies (sp?) alerts me to the damn funniest mommy blog ever, and I'm practically in tears of joy knowing other mothers are out there making their baby-misadventure lemons into hilarious posts of pink bubbly lemonade.