Happy Birthday to my BFF

Tomorrow is a special day - it's my BFF's birthday. Some years we let one another's birthdays pass quietly, but this year I wanted to take some time to think about why we've been friends so long.

We have been friends now for about 10 1/2 years. It started in college - I sought her out in the study lounge. I was a young mother in a place where mothers were those bossy people who gave you trouble for wasting away reading week drinking beer. I spent my first year of college awkwardly not fitting in with anyone I tried to hang out with. But then, in one of my child psychology classes, a girl piped up about the differences in girls and boys, and used her own FOUR children as an example! I wasted no time in finding and befriending her.

By the third year of our degree, we were planning our class schedules together and our university instructors referred to us as the "Bobsy Twins." Though it's difficult to be that inseparable now, with our children at such different ages and stages, my heart remains inseparable from hers.

Christine and I have a tradition where she creates an amazing, upright Barbie cake for my little girls' fourth birthdays. The final one will be this April. Since boys aren't usually into Barbie, she created a race track cake for Braeden's fifth (and I'm assuming Kai won't be left out). My tradition with her kids is a little less crafty - I phone on random birthdays and sing an off-key version of the birthday song. It's been done at least once for each kid (they love it, I'm sure).

She loves my children like her own. So much so, that she firmly disciplines them when they give her guff. Her parents gave my kids a Christmas gift this year, and I know that they pray for me like they do for her. Her kids know better than to let me hear about it if they've been getting into trouble at school - it will promptly be reported to their mother and we will delight in their discipline together (LOL).

When she comes over for coffee (which hasn't been nearly often enough lately - hint, hint), she'll help me clean the kitchen or fold laundry. She babysat yesterday while I was parent helper at school, and I came home to find the dishes done and laundry switched and folded. She's so gifted at practical helps that she doesn't even realize it's a gift! I am the pain in her butt that pushes her to get out and do fun stuff more often. Sometimes it means rounding up those kids of hers and feeding the herd at my place so she'll go for dinner with her hubby. Other times it means shoving movie tickets into her frugal hands.

She pulled me out of the pits of parenting disaster when I felt like I was melting down and could take no more. I argued and debated with her until she found her way back to God. She cheered me on...I cheered her on.

We balance each other out in so many ways. She toughens me up as a Mom, and I loosen her up a bit. Over the years, I've become less of a soft touch and she's learned to cry more often. She taught me to be more frugal with my money, and I'm still teaching her to splurge every now and then. She tries to make me watch over my children more closely, I try to make her let hers go a little further. In so many ways we're polar opposites, but less so after nearly 11 years.

We have prayed each other through some serious valleys, and called each other back from our desert lands. We celebrate one another's victories, and refuse to let the other settle into defeat. We laugh, we cry, we sit in silence, we even argue occasionally. Friendship is beautiful and messy.

There seem to be seasons where I feel as though I am the taker - I am dry thirsty grass and she spends her days pouring water on me. Then we reverse roles. And there are the seasons of other busy-ness that keep us distant from each other. Over the years, I have lost track of who's done what how often. I think that's the way God intended it to be. Friendship is not a score card. (And I suspect if I had a score card I would be busily and frantically trying to keep up.)

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, [her] friend can help [her] up. But pity the [wo]man who falls and has no one to help [her] up! Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. ~Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, 12

Happy birthday, my friend. You....complete me. :) (Did I mention that we're both suckers for a good, cheesy, teary movie? Yup, we're even going out to one tonight!)

P.S. As her birthday gift, I am going to sit on the phone with that silly girl all morning and get her blog started up. I'll add a link so you can all go meet her as soon as we're up and running.