The Three Musketeers

My mom emailed me today with one simple statement: "Six months from today is Christmas." Whaaa?  Summer just started like five minutes ago, and in Maine, you count every one of those minutes as precious.  But it did get me thinking about gifts. And how even when Christmas is still six months away, there are gifts that appear in our lives every day, in all forms, whether we are conscious of them or not. 

So today G and I had a date with two of his buds, M and N, and their mommies, who are, of course, my buds.  We met at a local indoor playspace to burn some energy.  The day was raw and rainy, so needless to say, the place was packed. Jammed with kids of all ages, running amok, shrieking, giggling, tossing random objects from high platforms.  Chaos.  In the middle of it all, were our boys, each finding their own interests--for M it was the trainset...you could see the imagination etched on his face as he intently made those trains move around the track.  For N, it was the wooden grocery cart, that he expertly rolled all over the play area, then climbed in to check out all that was going on around him.  And G, in his typical introspective way, stood magnetized to me for the first ten minutes, before deciding it was ok to explore, and gravitated towards the shakable egg, yellow maraca and bell tambourine.  These three could form a band!

The six of us then went to lunch at a popular in town deli.  It's there that I started thinking about gifts. There we were--three mamas with our three boys, all blonde-headed cuties, sitting contently in three highchairs, eating their blueberries, mixed veggies, and whatever else we put in front of them.  These boys have been given the gift of starting out their friendships at the earliest stage possible--G and N, who were born exactly a week apart, and their almost-two-year-old role model, M, (who affectionately refers to G as "Gairdette" and it's just about the cutest thing I've ever heard.) I like to think that G and N were friends in the wombs since N's mommy and I, even into our ninth month of pregnancy, were still taking walks with our dogs and bringing them to the playfields.  And M, well, the running joke is that G seems to have gotten alot of his advice about this world from M, even before he was born. 

In a world that is so chaotic and uncertain, where there are worries and tragedies and misfortunes, it's a significant gift to have a day like this, spent with friends, while watching your own child find his place in the group.  M, being a year older, is  clearly more vocal and can say what he wants, etc., while the two almost 14 month olds are still just stringing together long bouts of jibberish with an occassional "Dadadadadaaaaaaaa" mixed in. But if you really watch and listen, they are communicating with each other the only way they know how.  Being around M always makes me wonder what G will be like at his age now, but basically in a year.  Almost a year ago at M's first birthday party, I couldn't imagine G at that age, upright, gaining the confidence to walk, and yet here we are, just about there.  And someday soon, N and G will be walking side by side together.  Yet another milestone and gift. I hope as the years go by, and these boys grow, that they will always remain pals, and us three mommas can look back on days like this and say "Remember when..."

Checking out my reflection at Gelato Fiasco

Is this thing sturdy?