Friends...

I have been reading about all of these mommies that are lonely after having their kids. It seems that once we have our kids, we seem to lose track of our social lives. This makes me wistful for my friends.

I haven’t seen most of mine in quite a while. After all, many of my friends live in other states. After working for Renaissance festivals for the past ten years, I have friends spread out all over the place. I don’t attribute that to the birth of my triplets, although I suppose it must have a little to do with it.

For obvious reasons, I no longer work for the Renaissance festival. We were asked to come back and work, triplets and all, however I just felt that the festival might have some child labor problems if I decided to try and lug my trio out there and work in the lanes as performers.

I suppose I could also go back to work for my friends who have several stores on the site, but I am just not so sure that my kids would acclimate very well to living in the back of the booth on weekends even if it is one of the few with climate control and real potties. Besides, it is about a five hour drive made mostly at night and trying to keep them on their schedule during a faire day may be stretching my luck a bit!

We do still all keep in touch. The Internet is our main source of communication as it is free and easily accessible for everyone. I keep track of everyone through our message boards and as of late even through care-pages as one of my friends has had quite an extreme pirate make-over and now is working on obtaining a peg-leg.

I do have a few friends in town. I ran into one of them today at Wal-mart of all places! It was nice to get to try and talk a quick bit. I got to even meet her new husband, who seems like a very nice man. It’s not every day I actually get stopped by someone that I know!

Another friend of mine works really odd hours mostly, so I don't get to see her much either. She is such a trooper. While I was on bed rest over Christmas season, she borrowed her mother's mini-van and motorized cart so that I could go Christmas shopping.

She came over, Santa hat collection in tow, and actually took her very pregnant and hormonal friend shopping, not once, but twice. She didn't even flinch when we discovered that very hormonal, very pregnant ladies (or maybe it was because it was just me) cannot drive motorized carts to save their lives. She wasn't even embarrassed to be seen with me when I nearly took out an entire display in the middle of the mall... then there was that innocent bystander....well you get the idea!

That very same friend would spend most of the evening, well into the wee hours of the night with me while I was in recovery after the triplet's birth. I know I wasn't pretty and probably not very pleasant either, but she stayed with me none-the-less so that I wasn't lonely. She even helped me keep my mind off of my three tiny babies that I hadn't met yet that were in the NICU. I am so grateful for her (Happy Birthday MK!)

Then there is my adventurous friend. There is only one who has actually been brave enough to come over and go shopping with us. Her name is Christina, but my son renamed her C-neenie when he was about 2 and the name has since stuck!

One day back in September, she very bravely came over in hopes of checking out the newly-opened Halloween store with us. Little did she know exactly what she was in for. First off, we had decided for some reason that it was a good idea to take her car instead of mine-why, I don’t remember.

We were lucky, that for some reason or another, the stroller actually fit into her trunk with out having to bungee it shut. It was looking positive! Then we discovered that one of the seat belts in the backseat didn’t buckle. Only a true friend will sit there and trouble shoot and actually find a solution for this silly puzzle of mine- how to get three baby-car-seats into the backseat of a car with only two seat belts.

I had quite forgotten about the latch system… Then my phone rang with another friend that I hadn’t spoken to in forever calling us. While I giggled with him over our folly, C-neenie actually managed to seat belt two car seats with one belt (latch & all just in case) and finagled the remaining seat, baby and all into place.

Once we arrived at the Halloween store, my poor, already frazzled friend decided that she wanted to give limo-driving a try. She managed very well, even dodging well meaning onlookers and fielding questions about my trio while we all speed shopped through the store.

I am so very grateful for my daring and brave friend. She is the only person other than my aunt who has ventured out in public with us for a shopping excursion. She always makes me feel normal even when I know that I and my family are anything but!

Today, my son and I went on a mission to find booster seats. I have hopes that this will ease the strain of us attempting lunch at local restaurants. We managed to find three fold-able boosters that fold up like tiny camping chairs and have little drawstring pouches for toting them. We are ready for a lunch date as soon as some of my friends are brave enough to try eating at a table with three tiny novice diners and their mum!