Charlie's First Friend

We were the first people to move into this house. The first people to move onto the street, actually. We used to live a couple streets over, in the "old housing". The houses over there were teeny tiny, held together with a bug attracting layer of yellow stucco, and falling apart at the seams. When we saw these houses going up, we moaned and groaned over how much nicer they were, and about how badly we wanted one. We'd slow down when driving past them, trying to look past the empty living room and imagine ourselves cooking a meal in the brand new kitchen that was hidden behind it. We had to have one. The key to getting into one of the new houses, was for us to get pregnant.

So that's what we did.

Well it wasn't exactly like that, haha. We had been trying to get pregnant for awhile, twelve months, but the timing just seemed to tick tock right into place, and as soon as these houses became available, we walked out of the doctor's office waving a note around saying that Herman baby #2 was on the way.

We moved in right away. Shortly after we were set up and cooking in the kitchen that we had dreamt about, the units on the street started filling up slowly, one at a time, house by house. And then after a year and a half of comfort, our first set of neighbors got orders and moved away. I wish I could say that it was a pleasant goodbye, but the situation behind the reason for leaving was heavy with gossip and awkward moments.

Our new neighbors moved in a week or two ago, directly across the street. We met, we chatted, and then we had our first play date. Their children are the exact same age as ours, giving us a common ground to start with. 10 minutes after they came over, the girls were splashing around in the kiddy pool together, and the boys were fighting over who got to chew on which vintage happy meal Fraggle Rock toy.

Oh! Wait- so... that would make this, Charlie's very first friend!


When Eleanore was younger we didn't know any other kids her age. We didn't know anyone, really. For the most part it was just me and her at home by ourselves all day, while Christopher was off at work. I didn't belong to any play groups, we lived in a less than friendly apartment complex, and if you can believe it, we didn't have the internet. How did I ever survive without the internet? It was rough.

Putting Charlie side by side with a baby just a month older than him, is insane. First of all, his friend is huge too! People have literally stopped me in public places to tell me that my son is the biggest baby that they've ever seen (its happened twice). I was so excited to see that this other little boy was just as big as mine, that I think I might have shouted something along the lines of "oh hi fat baby!" at him, from across the street. Hes not quite as big as Charlie, the friend has more muscle and fewer rolls, but they could still probably swap clothes if they needed to (I know they both wear the same size diaper, both of 'em rockin' a size 5).

Of course I've caught myself comparing their head sizes and wondering 'should my son be doing that?' when his friend puts a plastic egg inside of a plastic cup and then takes it back out again (Charlie just sticks the egg in his mouth and slobbers on it), but I know that all babies develop at their own speed, and yeah, blah blah blah- Charlie has a friend!