20.3.11

Sweet peas

What a blessing it is when remain close to our dearest friends through the years.  Friends who truly know us, our most inner anxieties, the depths of our souls.  I am graced enough to have a handful of those women in my life.  One of my greatest confidantes is my friend, E., my old college roommate.  E. picked me off the shower floor while I showered in the stall next to her and said, I don't feel well, I think I'm going to faint. (And no, it wasn't after a drunken night.  I had the chills, was weak and ill.)  I spent the rest of the day in bed.  A. jokes that E.'s my PCP since - even after 17 years since we've graduated - I always call her first about any medical concerns (E.'s a midwife) before I call my medical doctor.  E. is so wonderful a friend that when she was pregnant with her third son, she was fearful of telling me of her expectant news as she didn't want to upset me since we were trying then . . . without much success.  A. is a robust and tough two-year-old who looks like he just might play for the Jets one day.  

Today, we visited with E., her husband G., their three sons and newborn daughter, I.  On our parenting styles spectrum, E. & G. are on the end we hope to model ourselves after.  A. & I often discuss hypothetical family situations and sometimes not so hypothetical, real and those we've had the (dis)pleasure of witnessing, and we ask ourselves, "What would E. & G. do?"  Knowing that we'll be older parents, we joke around that by the time we are well settled into life with our daughter or son, folks may think s/he is our grandchild! . . . though I understand that in our metro region it may not be too unusual to expand our family in our late thirties or early forties.  There's certainly something to be said for being parents later in life.  We are comforted by the fact that we've had years to observe and take note of varied parenting styles and will be able to pick and choose what works for us as well as know that we will have banked a good amount of life experience and wisdom as older parents.  

For Irene
three XY peas in a pod
the newest of them all 
a tiny fourth - XX!
sweetest pea