My Girls

Last night, I headed out to see SATC2 with my dear friend Tracy. Without giving anything away, I have to say that the movie was mediocre and far too “over the top”. However, my favorite scene revolved around two of the characters sitting around and having a heart to heart talk about the trials and tribulations of motherhood.

Tracy and I were pregnant with both of our children at the same time and she is the very first friend I made whan I moved here to Philly. I can’t tell you how many phone calls we have had talking about the very same thing. “This baby won’t go to sleep.” “It’s 6pm and I am finally eating something.” “I am exhausted and all I can do is cry.” “I’ve been wearing the same sweats for the past three days.” “Why didn’t anybody tell us it was so hard?”

Thank God I had Tracy to bounce all of my new mother stress off of. We grew up together those first few years of motherhood. I remember one day I walked out of the house after telling Mr. 1969 that I was running errands and drove to Tracy’s house and sat in her kitchen crying out all of my new mother frustrations before washing my face, putting on my cape and heading back home to be Wonder Woman. She is definitely one of those friends I can lay down my tough girl persona with and just be myself.

No matter what, mothers aren’t supposed to talk about motherhood being difficult. We are supposed to all take to breastfeeding. We should love staying up all night rocking crying infants. We all should want to quit our jobs to stay home. We should want to eat, breathe and sleep our kids. Breaks? Real mothers don’t ever need breaks. Anything less than perfection makes us feel like we are failures and society will be quick to call 1-800-bad-mommy. The toughest critics? Other moms. We judge each other so harshly. Even worse? We judge ourselves.

The best part about Tracy and I? We supported each other. We picked each other up. We made mistakes and then laughed at them. We were a support system for each other. That’s what real girlfriends do for each other. We don’t judge or point out flaws. We also reminded each other that we were new to this, we were learning the ropes and that we would be okay.

As we sat and watched that scene in the movie, my girl Tracy grabbed my hand and said “Have we been there or what?” and I squeezed her hand and told her that I loved her to pieces for always talking me down off the ledge. There’s nothing like motherhood but it’s even better to go through it with good girlfriends by your side. Thanks to all of my girls that helped me make it so far.