When Andy was in kindergarten, I ran into a friend who told me how she participated in a Mom's Night Out with all the mom's from her daughter's grade. Not just the class, the entire grade. There was only about twenty or so people who showed up, out of somewhere between 60-80, but it gave these women a chance to get to know each other so that as their kids moved up to a new grade every year, the moms would know at least a few of the other moms in the class. The class lists were always changing, but the moms kept this going and were able to keep up with what was happening in all the classes, among all the students, and knew what to look out for in years to come.
At the time Andy was in private kindergarten, but I thought it was a brilliant idea and a great way to meet the other moms. We were lucky that we had a lot of parent participation that year, so a lot of the moms would show up for things but I didn't really know them. So I started a monthly Mom's Night Out. There were only 13 kids in the class that year, so we never had more than 6-7 people show up, but it was still a lot of fun and we all knew each other pretty well by the end of the year.
The kids scattered to several different elementary schools the next year, but we kept having Mom's Night Out. Now, three years later, there are still about six of us that show up from the original group and there are several others that have joined us through the years, mostly from that same school. It really has been a great group of woman and a support network I never would have believed existed. Surprisingly I haven't made that many friends with parents at the elementary school because they've all come from the preschool/kindergarten.
A couple of weeks ago, my wonderfully thoughtful friend, Jenny, took charge of Mom's Night Out (which sadly has been far from monthly this school year) and put together a good-bye/happy birthday evening for me. She enlisted the help of my other wonderful friend, Melanie, and a few others and we had a fantastic evening. At the time it seemed a little premature. We didn't even know when we were moving and we had barely received an offer on our house, but with the end of school approaching it was the perfect time for everybody. As it gets closer to the end of the school year moms get a little frantic with the lack of time to accomplish everything as well as all the added end of the year activities. We picked two weeks before school ended, after the baseball season was over and before school was out and everyone scattered for the summer. Seriously, there are some friends I barely see over the summer because either they are travelling or I am or our kids are in a bajillion camps.
Anyway, it was an amazing evening and the best turnout we ever had. Nothing outrageous or over the top, just a bunch of ladies sitting around having a fun relaxing evening. Perfect.
Spring forward a couple of weeks to this past weekend for Jenny's 40th birthday party. Of course Jenny can't have any old party, it had to be an 80s themed costume party. When April in New Jersey had her decades 40th birthday party in February I was kind of a slacker and did the late 80s early 90s grunge look that Charlie and I sadly still have in our closet (now you see why moving is so difficult for us). I knew I could get away with it because I flew hundreds of miles to go to that party and April was just happy to see me, plus she knows me and knows I don't do costume parties. However I knew Jenny would be seriously disappointed in me if I didn't play along so I did neon 80s to the nth degree on Saturday night.
I had absolutely no expectations, which is probably why I had such a fabulous time. Everybody was dressed in outrageous costumes, the band was fabulous, and a bunch of my friends were there. What more could you ask for? Charlie and I never dance, but when you are dancing in crazy 80s clothes people don't know if you are pretending to dance horribly or that you actually do dance horribly so it totally took the pressure off. It really was one of the best parties I have been to in a long time.
At Andy's end of the year awards ceremony last week they had all the third graders get up and say the thing they will remember most from third grade. Kids talked about field trips, meeting friends, winning events at field day, mastering their times tables, all sorts of things that really having meaning when you are in third grade. When Andy got up he said that what he would remember most from third grade was the last few months in it's entirety (my words, not his) because a) it was what had happened more recently and b) because he wasn't going to be around next year. When he said that, I got a lump in my throat. But I totally know what he meant.
These last few weeks have been amazing. We've spent so much time with our friends, trying to get as many moments in as possible, and it's all been fantastic. This weekend we went over the see the Butler's new house on Saturday during the day, we went to Jenny's party on Saturday night and shared a babysitter with the Povedas so Andy and Sarah and Amanda all got to have sleepovers with their best friends, had Sunday breakfast with the Povedas and O'Donnells and then on Sunday afternoon we went over to the Hashimoto's for our annual swim party with our AA friends. Last night I was so content I did not want the weekend to end. I just wanted everything to freeze in time.
That's the funny thing about time, it just keeps going...and so do we. So in a couple of weeks the movers will come and put all our things into a big truck and take it to our new house, or so that's how I tell it to the kids. But I will have the best memories of these last few weeks and all that we've done and know that the people that we are choosing to spend our time with now are the ones that we will always keep in touch with and visit and hopefully they will come visit us. Because they are not only our friends, but our family, and they are the best thing about being here.
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