A Boy Named Luke

My friend Sarah came to visit this weekend along with her two boys, C and R. We had a great time catching up and our boys as usual had a great time together as well. Richie and C have been friends since birth (or atleast since Connor's birth). Sarah and I met almost 6 years ago. We were both new to town and our husbands were new faculty at the college where Rich works.

We became instant friends. We soon realized that our boys (Richie was 4 weeks old when we moved here and C was born three months after) were going to be close in age and that we would soon have A LOT in common. If it weren't for Sarah I honestly don't know if I would have made it through that first year of motherhood. We got the boys together for "playdates" which at first consisted of them lying on the floor together doing nothing and/or taking long naps. In those early days we had a lot of time on our hands to sit on the couch and chat for hours, eating chocolate chip cookies, and laughing. Needless to say their playdates now (at age 5) are a little more interesting and quite a bit more interactive.

See Exhibit A (Richie's bedroom floor)



and

Exhibit B (my living room floor)




(And this is after Rich picked up a little bit:-)

Even though we don't have as much quiet time to chat, we do still enjoy trying to talk over the chaos as we referee the festivities and dodge a ball or two flying by our heads.

Since then we've added two more boys to the mix (one each...also very close in age, Will and R). However, two years ago Sarah and her family moved because her husband was offered a fabulous job at another school. We still keep in touch and try to visit each other as often as possible, but the little ones (we sometimes call them "the seconds") are not as familiar with each other as the older ones. This became quite clear to us this weekend as R kept calling Will by the name Luke (apparently a buddy of his back home). However, by the end of the visit, we were straight on names and William at one point said "Ryan is my best buddy"...quickly followed by "He's a boy". This is rather novel to him because all of his buddies currently seem to be girls. I guess like any man he was just noting his appreciation of a little testosterone in the room.

Sarah, it was great to see you...until next time!