It Takes a Village

I remember how lonely I was when I had Cakes four years ago. I didn’t know many other parents, and didn’t have many friends in the city (we’d recently moved). I sure didn’t know any neighbours. I remember going to drop-ins, desperate for conversation, making forced, boring, repetitive small talk with women I had nothing in common with besides having given birth.

This time couldn’t be more different. Thanks to the blogosphere, I have my tribe of fabulous women who are just a tweet or an email away. I can even *gasp* phone them if I want to. We’ve moved to a far friendlier neighbourhood where I actually want to talk to a lot of the parents I meet at the park. We have a few fellow parent friends on our block who take Cakes for play dates with their kids. And I have the loveliest next-door neighbour. He and Cakes went for brunch last weekend. And the other night, after a very, very long solo day with both kids, Cakes spied him outside on our communal garden bench. “Alan!” she shouts out the window. “Wait there, we’re coming out after mommy goes pee!” (thanks for sharing, Cakes). When we straggle outside, me with my spit-up stained shirt and dark circled eyes, there’s a crisp, cold glass of white wine waiting for me, and he stretches out his hands to take Sherwood from my tired arms.

Good friends; good neighbours. They’re making all the difference.