My Mommy Challenges - #1

So as a mom....I feel as though I am faced with a handful of new challenges that I am learning how to tackle. One of these is what I will call the "Mother's circle of friends".

These are the mother's that I turn to to help bounce ideas off of, take comfort in when having a hard day and can share endless stories and pictures of my kiddos with without annoying the crap out of them! Because they are momma's too!

Some of these mother's we luck into...we have our close friends pregnant at the same time, therefore we all migrate to motherhood together. This is always fun...because you know them pre-mommy and they know you pre-mommy. To them...you are the girl who could go out and party until 2am and they get the chance now to hear stories about bottle feedings at 2am. Your kids can grow up friends and then you have someone to tease about those stories "back then" that we all promise to tell our kids to embarass the parent :)

Then you have family that are like friends. I am lucky that for two of my 3 pregnancies, I was pregnant at the same time as my sister-in-laws...this was fun...you are all apart of the same family and not only are they built in friends (this might not be true for all) but the kids are cousins and have a great support system and built in playmates at all family functions.

Then there are the new mommy friends...the ones that only know you with a belly or stretch marks. It is what brought you together as friends. Your kids are on the same team, dance class or school. This is where my challenge comes in...meeting new mom friends. All of a sudden I am back in Junior High scared to talk to the popular kids. Ridiculous I know...but making friends can be difficult...and I am not normally a shy person, but I find myself in situations that instead of introducing myself, I back off. This must be changed! Katelyn is in dance now...and I have a friend that takes her daughter to the same class. So I have one friend there...but I am pretty sure I have never reached out to say hello to other moms in the class. Also, I am looking at putting KK in soccer...again...this would be a great opportunity for Katelyn and myself to make friends.

So I am going to push myself....force myself into those awkward situations where there is no other choice than to say "Hello my name is...." I will update...hopefully before long I will have a few new mommy friends :)

As I write this post...I realize this sounds as though I am saying that moms are only friends with other moms...and that IS NOT where I am going with this...I find that my single friends as well as those friends that are married without children are very important in my friend group. First of all they accept me and my crazy mom stories without judgement and I am hoping that I haven't scared anyone from having children with some of my crazy stories!! I think I am really just saying that I hide behind my kids sometimes when making friends and even keeping up my current friendships. I need to realize, I have to have a life too and take the time away to let myself rejuvenate. Well...here is to friendships!