Friends listen to 'Endless Love' in the dark

Obviously one of the things I've been dealing with the most since our move to Michigan is the loss of our friend base from Cincinnati. I talk to a lot of them on the phone and such, but as we all know, that never quite fills the void, or the intimacy of human contact. Luckily, little Megan doesn't have these worries yet, but I'm sure she'll have to deal with them in the coming years as friends move away, or vice versa and she feels the sting of what that loss means to her.



So it was with great excitement that we welcomed the Riels; Jeff, Karen, and Reva. The weekend was a mish-mash of lunches, chasing kids, wine-drinking, and laughs. But it was joyous to finally see Megan actually interacting with her friend. Now, a lot of the interacting involved snatching toys away from each other and parental admonishment to share, but still, they were interacting. We even had a chance to throw them in the tub together for the gratuitous 'this-will-be-used-against-you' shots. They loved splashing around together. All told, we had six bodies in that bathroom either bathing or taking photos, plus one nosy dog. Good times.


They also dropped off her early birthday present (only ELEVEN days left! OMG!), a singing, rocking pony. I PROMISE there will be video of this later, but this is a primo gift. In fact, I liked it so much ...


Over the past year when we go out with friends we try to be completely cognizant that nobody cares about our peanut near as much as we do, so the conversations do not routinely drift off into what minor milestone Megan met that day. However, to do things like that, we need weekends like this where we discussed a lot of topics, but foremost among them were parenting strategies and ideals, growth charts, corporal punishment, baby poop, baby illnesses, kid's clothes, etc.


So big ups to the Riels for stopping by on Valentine's Day weekend no less to say hi. We are blessed to have such great friends be a part of our life. They 'literally' wore Megan out.