My friend Kim is having a baby and we had a shower for her yesterday. I’m so excited to meet the little one. I love it that she and husband, Roy haven’t found out the sex of the baby. But I hate it at the same time. The anticipation is killing me. I’m guessing boy. I think I always guess boy though since I have two of them. And it seems like lots of people are having boys these days. Kim is going to be a super mom. One thing we all really enjoyed about this shower is that there was none of that “guess which candy bar is melted in the diaper” game business. We just ate and talked and opened gifts. Refreshing. It’s so much fun to be a part of people’s lives as they’re having babies. I love to be able to relate and pass on a little advice here and there (if it’s asked for). I love it that so many of my friends are having babies now, with me, rather than years ago. Funny how that changes over time. In my parent’s day, they were finished having kids by the time they were 23! I can’t even imagine. I think it’s nice to spend some time on your own or with a spouse for awhile longer. Not that it can’t be a beautiful thing to have kids younger, but in many cases, including my own, it’s good idea to wait a bit longer.
Kim and I have always called ourselves “late bloomers.” I think that might just be a nice way to say immature. We wanted to be wild and crazy just a little too long. Now that life has slowed down and we’ve done some growing up, it’s a beautiful thing to be moms together.
When we were in our early twenties, Kim and I always talked about how life was so much different than we thought it would be. We would complain about how we never found the perfect guy at eighteen like we were supposed to. We would whine about how we may never have kids. We would stumble through life making silly mistakes in silly attempts at figuring out what to do next. It became a joke to say “somebody lied to us.” This just wasn’t what it was supposed to be like! We were conditioned to think you go to college, find a perfect guy, get a nice job, get married, buy a house, make babies and that’s that. When that didn’t happen, we were left to figure out what to do with being just us. We were talking (in depth) about this on our way home from the Cities to Spicer years ago. We stopped at McDonald’s to use the bathroom. We left the car saying, “somebody lied to us.” We walked through the doors and came upon a little girl’s birthday party. The girls were all pounding their fists on the table and yelling, “Liar! Liar! Liar!” We totally freaked out. All we could do was laugh. Maybe those girls had it figured out long before we did.
As painful as it has been to “wait,” both Kim and I have been able to see all the reasons why as we look back over our twenties. We just simply could not have taken on motherhood with who we were and what we knew back then. I’m even thankful for all the wild and crazy mistakes and the things life can throw at you when you’re fumbling along blindly. We have a lot of memories from those years. Some ain’t much fun to remember, but we had each other. When I look at Kim, all round with baby, I get all nostalgic and busting with joy about the future at the same time. 
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