Hodge Podge

So much swirling in my brain tonight I decide to just blurt it all out on virtual paper. Lucky you.

1. Friendships - My recent post on an ending friendship was met with a lot of comments running the gamut. Thanks all for your kind words and well wishes.

This process of moving on has me reflecting on my various relationships in general. My two closest friends are also my longest friendships. One dates back over 28 years. The other has lasted roughly 27 years. Keep in mind, we're on the verge of 33/34 years of age. These relationships have navigated long distances between us, different roads for our lives and different schedules - yet we've remained close. We email, mostly. We call on occasion. We get to see each other now and then. The beauty of it is, when we do get together it's effortless. It's comfortable. It's safe. It feels like home.

I suppose, in retrospect, I never had this with N. I mean we did have a comfortable exchange going when we were in the midst of a 'close' span. Yet, when our lives verged off a common course, things felt forced. At those crossroad moments when we'd be coming back into a close span I often felt like I'd rather see her in a group setting. Doing so prevented that noticable silence from setting in - those moments when you start to stir your coffee a bit more than you need to because you need to do something to fill the time.

It's not like that with my other friends. When One-S and I get together, it's like we're 10-years old sneaking downstairs at 1am to swap Oreos and M&Ms again. It doesn't matter if she's newly married and newly minted "Mom." It doesn't matter if she has one kid and I have two. It doesn't matter if she's a working doctor and I'm walking the line between stay-at-home and work-out-of-home. We just pick up where we left off - our differences making us more interesting to one another.

Same with Two-S. It never matters that our lives look so very different on the surface. When we get together we could talk about the great art of watching paint dry and we'd have a good time doing it. We can talk about our past. We talk about our present. We talk about our futures. And again, it's like we're girls whispering in the dark tent of a Girl Scout camp, smelling of camp fires and bug spray. We're giggling about Wendy's story of the three cupped bra and we're wondering if it'll once again be our tent of four stuck cleaning laterines on the last day as punishment for not adhereing to quiet time hours.

Clarity now sets in. This wasn't the reality of my friendship with N. We were friends when we had a common bond. And that's ok. There are places for those friendships. We just weren't meant to be life-long friends. I know there are those pals I'll be giggling with when I'm some crazy, white-haired old lady. And there are friends that I'll only see in my photo albums. With that in mind, I'm ok with this. I'd be ok with it, if I didn't fear it breaking my son's heart.

2. It's hard to displine a smart-ass. (Is that a bad nickname to assign to one's own child?) I asked Logan to help me clean up tonight. He decided it wasn't worth his time. I offered the option - you clean up or the toys left on the floor go in the away box. He was fine with the box.

Me - Logan, you understand what we're talking about here right? Matt Medic, your fireman props and this thing are all going to be in the box and off limits to play with.

Logan - I know. They'll come back eventually though, right?

I ought to note that once he saw how many things ended up in the box, he quickly helped me complete the task at hand.

3. Sometimes the simplest of things can bring kids of all ages the most joy. We celebrated my mother and brother's birthdays tonight. Logan wanted decorations so we picked up a single balloon and steamers. Knowing that what the kid *really* wanted was noise makers, I also picked up some of the variety that unroll as they make a flapping sound. It was the hit I expected it to be. Not just with Logan, however, but the whole family. Even those that first made a face at the bag I held in my hands. We spent a good deal of time blowing those things in each other's foreheads before cutting into our "pizza cake".

The cake? It was Logan's idea. Your standard marble cake frosted with a orange (meant to be tan) frosting on the sides and about a 1/2 inch on top. The center of the cake was frosted red. We diced white chocolate into shards and scattered it around the center of the cake - it was to look like cheese. We placed a few round brown and red-colored chocolate discs around the top to represent pepperoni and sausage. It too was a hit. The kids made the cake with a little help from me. Our only problem with eating it? Megan got upset when the little discs came off. She kept trying to climb on the table to replace them on the cake. All her hard work for naught, I suppose.

4. Speaking of Megan - the girl has gotten into two new habits. The first is covering her mouth when she giggles. It's hysterical. The more we laugh at it, the more she does it. The second is playing dress up. Not just your regular form of dress up in the cutesy little play things people buy her. My child places her winter hat on her head and then climbs into a pair of my shoes. She's content in anything else - diaper, fully dressed, pajamas, whatever - as long as she has that hat and my shoes. I've started to hide my heels.