Best buddies

Kat and Luca moved back to New York today.  Leo and I are really sad to see them go.  

I met Kat the first time I went to the prenatal yoga class where I ended up meeting most of my mom friends.  She was almost full term and as we were chatting Luca kicked out towards me through her belly - I'll never forget that. 

After Luca was born (a couple of months before Leo), Kat and her husband came back to the yoga class to share their incredible home birth story.  I was so inspired by her story, it was one of the standout birth stories from that class that inspired me to work towards having my own natural birth, which I was lucky enough to achieve.

We ran into each other a few times over the course of the next several months and exchanged numbers; when I got food poisoning when Leo was four or five months old, she brought me soda crackers and sprite and pretty much saved my life.  Right after that, they moved to an apartment up the street, we started meeting almost nightly at our neighborhood park, and the rest of the story wrote itself.  We've been through a lot together - baby sickness, teething, lack of sleep, husbands working/traveling, lots of wine, lots of mascara reviews, sometimes feeling like we were going insane trying to balance our old selves, our new selves and our new growing families.

When we started spending time together, our boys were not yet crawling.  They grew to love each other and became best buddies.  They are a couple of months apart in age, and they have learned so many important lessons from one another, not having any siblings or cousins nearby.  Recently I was watching them play after spending an entire afternoon, dinner, and evening together and I realized that I had not seen them fight or even get mad at each other.  They'd learned to play and get along by being together.  What an incredible thing for two boys who live so far from extended family. 

It's not often that you meet a friend who becomes like family.  I've been lucky to meet more than one on this mama journey, but Kat is the only one who not only doesn't tease me for wearing mascara to the gym, but she could usually be found on the elliptical right next to mine not only wearing mascara but probably involved in some heated discussion about it (with me).

We will miss you, but we can't wait to come and visit you on the East Coast!