When Friendship is Born...

"Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: 

"What! You too? I thought that no-one but myself...""

C.S.Lewis Four Loves

We still sometimes talk about the moment that email was sent... the one that broke the ice... the one that turned us from expectant mothers with rose-tinted glasses sitting in an NCT class talking about our dreams of parenting, to real, living-in-the-moment, I'm-not-coping mothers who admitted it was hard. It was hard.

Seven babies... all born within 3 weeks of each other... all first time Mama's figuring it all out. And one Mama who had the guts to say to the rest of us "Motherhood is TOUGH". I will be forever grateful.

Because in the moment of that email, this group of Mama's became for me a place I could be real, and honest... a place of sharing... a place of vulnerability. Yes... motherhood is full of golden moments... moments that make your heart sing, and your smile sparkle, and your head hurt like its never hurt before.

But these little people; they are the evidence that we are doing it... through all the hard stuff; the tantrums, the chat back, the 400 times repeated instruction, the demands, the constancy of it all... and through all the golden moments: the bedtime stories, the snuggles, the "I love yous" and the family jokes... they are growing up into little people. They are no longer the helpless tiny bundles - they are personalities of their own... big brothers and sisters, with their own little friendship tiffs, and their own make-believe games. They have their quirks, their likes and their dislikes, their sayings, their jokes and their giggles.

And they are growing... no longer seven... now 12... with two more on the way this year. Our little gang is getting bigger and bigger...

And so, on Saturday, we gathered together for our yearly get-together. Of course, we see each other a lot more than that, but slowly and surely we are spreading out and moving to different parts of the country (and our eighth family left us to go to the other side of the world... we still miss you Linda!)... and so this once a year is extra special because we are ALL together. Mums, Dads and the ever growing band of little people...

What used to be an ordinary Tuesday afternoon gathering, is becoming more and more extraordinary, as we realise that this group is not just a few people who happened to go through a life experience together, but has become a group of friends who are doing life together.

And so each year, we take the annual photograph... the children seated in the same order, with siblings adding on in front...

and we watch with wonder as they change from this...

to this...

to this....

to this...

A very extraordinary, ordinary friendship.