Babies, Babies, Babies

The past few weeks have been full of babies, pregos, and showers. I am beginning to think that we are in the middle of the next baby boom or maybe it's just because most of the people am I close to are all entering the family stage of life.

Both of my best girlfriends are beginning the journey of motherhood. This past weekend I had the joy of having both of them in town. We were throwing a shower for Bitty, who is about a month away from having a little boy, Lawson. My other close friend, Sara, already has entered motherhood and has a 6 month old little girl, Leah. It was a fun weekend to connect with my girlfriends and to shower baby blessings on Bitty and little Lawson. It also proved to be a very emotionally draining and rough weekend. I entered the weekend with great hopes of finally relaxing and getting some much needed stress relief after a very intense work week. I was excited to have my favorite girls in town! The first half of the weekend went well. I was pretty beat on Friday, but was looking forward to the shower on Saturday. Sara and Leah stayed with me and on Saturday we were all up early preparing for the shower that morning. Things were starting to get a little stressful but rolling along rather well. As the shower time approached things began to get hectic, as they always seem to right before a big event. I was helping Sara lots with Leah, which was a joy! She is such a cutie!! The shower was a great success and Bitty got lots of awesome things.
As the shower came to a close and we began the clean up process, we all were getting a little tired and crabby and before I knew it things had gone from bad, to worse, to terrible. Sara and I got into a little tift and spent the ride back to my place in silence. Now Sara and I have been close friends for over 6 years and have never ever had a fight....it was terrible! We thankfully talked through our issues and realized that our friendship is going to take a little extra effort then it has in the past. For the first time in our 6 year journey as friends, we are not able to relate to each other very well. We have always been pretty much in the same stage of life and able to relate to what each was going through. Now with Sara being a wife and mom and me being single and working things aren't quite the same. I can't really relate as well to her and she can't to me. I am so thankful that God has blessed me with Sara and I know we will always remain lifelong friends. We just had to realize that, for the time being, we will both have to think outside of ourselves and try to place ourselves in the other's shoes. God is so faithful and will use this rough patch to make us even stronger and closer. It's already made us stonger and we are still as close as ever.

Apart from the baby filled weekend last weekend, I've thrown two other baby showers this month! Milli at work is having a baby girl in October and we had a shower for her a few weeks back and another girl at work, Bethany, is also expecting a baby girl in December and we just had here shower this past week. (I've tried to avoid drinking the water at the office ;-) It's been so fun to watch these girl's baby bumps pop out and to see their excitement over there little ones!! I can't wait to meet both their little girls in a few months!

I feel like with the knowledge I've gained on prego life and on infants that when my day comes I'll be all set! It's neat to see how God can use all the experiences of our lives and the lives of those close to us to prepare us for things down the road. It's also been interesting to watch how He has taken these new experiences and used them to stretch me and make me be less selfish and more focused on Him and His plan for my future. It's been such a joy to get to be apart of all these new life beginnings!!