Moms need play dates, too

We’d moved to Michigan just a few months before with a new baby and new employment for my husband. I was headlong into adjusting—to foreign surroundings, motherhood and a job that required Curt to be on the road for extended periods of time. I longed for familiarity and adult conversation. What I managed instead was a routine of feedings, naps and daily outings to remind me I was part of something beyond the walls of my home and the dullness of the ‘burbs. We were on such an outing when I heard the squeals of a child. I turned to see a beautiful little girl, arms flapping and legs, though confined by her stroller, purposefully propelling herself towards us. My own daughter turned toward the ruckus with a wary glance, and their eyes met in instant and happy recognition of their mutual baby-ness. One a towhead, the other a brunette, they cooed at one another as we adults introduced ourselves. The play date we arranged turned into a decades-long and singular friendship between the mothers that has withstood maturation, distance and the ambiguities of a long life. I still marvel at the essentialness of it. Perhaps this was a quirk of fate or simply the tenacity of a toddler. I prefer to believe in the magic of the universe, the perfect confluence of time and events that can neither be planned nor anticipated, but simply received.

I wish this for Em as she traverses the joys and challenges of motherhood.