What are the chances?

I think most will agree, the older we get the harder it is to make new meaningful friendships. So what are the chances that I would find an incredible new friend who has a daughter slightly older than Ella, and who lives about 7 houses away from us!?

Ella and I met Jane and Trish when Ella was about five months old. I hosted a mommy playgroup and they joined. Jane was a doll – she wore this classic little white smock dress and everyone was gaga over her white-blond hair and bright blue eyes. She was the only kid crawling and we all had a million questions for Trish. Trish is the kind of person you immediately label as “the nicest person in the whole world.”

About a million neighborhood walks, play dates, lunches, gym classes, ladies night outs, hilarious text messages, and emergency phone calls later we were joined at the hip.  Our friendship was easy, it felt like we had known each other forever and boy do we laugh a lot. Adam had started affectionately calling Trish my “girl-friend.” He teased me for weeks when I brought Trish my garden peonies for her anniversary (her wedding flower) right before we went out of town. It was raining that day and he would say – “That’s really romantic, Julia, delivering flowers in the rain to Trish.” HAHA! What cracked Adam up the most is although I saw Trish almost everyday during the week, we hardly talked over the weekend. Only another stay-at-home mom can understand this. Monday walks were always the best – trading stories from our crazy weekends.

To top off a great friendship, Jane and Ella became best buddies. They get so excited to see each other and over the past few months have started to play together – not just beside each other. Together we have tackled sharing, biting (thanks to miss Ella), and following the rules. Ella feels at home with Jane and Jane’s little brother “baby.”

About a month ago Trish and her husband got an amazing opportunity to move their family to Florida.  Happy for them, I supported her 100%, which I am kind of regretting now. Maybe if I protested a little she would be staying ;). And today, we all said goodbye. Our group of girls got together yesterday for one last playgroup and today we took a walk in the hood and had lunch. I came home, put Ella down, and decided to drown my sorrows in a blog post about my dear friend who I will miss so much.

What I will miss most about seeing Trish and the kids every day is the infused humor into our everyday life, easing the pain of our problems together, the important reminder of just how vital our mommy jobs are, venting about our fears and dreams for our children, watching our girls grow together, and knowing that there is always someone right around the corner who is there to help at the drop of a hat and who loves your child like their own.  I can’t help but feel I have taken for granted how lucky I have been this last year.

Of course we will stay in touch – I plan on hearing my phone beep about a million times a day with incoming messages from our group texts with Loren, Jennifer, and Ruby, as Adam says “who keeps texting you, dear!” But nothing will compare to having such an incredible friend right around the corner.

I love my girls and baby P so much and am forever grateful that God sent me such a wonderful new friend to call family. Watch out Florida, you’ll be seeing a lot more of the Zimmermans in the coming year.

We’ll miss you!