It's a Funny Thing...

Recently, I've been fortunate to get to hang out with my best friend, Allison, more regularly. Her husband has temporarily relocated to Myrtle Beach (which I count as divine intervention) thus, giving us more time to see each other. We've lived in different cities since college and since have lamented that we will probably never live in the same city again. It usually would just make me sad, but also thankful that our friendship has grown with the distance. Alas, we are within 30 minutes of each other every now and then.
But now when we hang out, it is different. When we go to dinner with our husbands and each other, it is different. Why? Because we have four kids between us. We each have two kids. What the? I mean, when did all of this happen? Just last week, she was coming over to hang out with her kids, when I had to make an emergency trip to dislodge the raisin that was stuck in my two year-old's nose. She still came over, but I never got to the pot of coffee that I wanted to consume while catching up with her. Actually, we did have 30 minutes during the day where all four kids were tucked away in their beds...maybe not asleep, but tucked away.
All of this got me thinking about my friends/time during college. I realized that some of my closest girl friends from college all have two kids now. And I really cannot believe all of it has happened. It seems like just yesterday we were all hanging out just watching a Baby Story on TLC (and me gagging, thinking that I could never do it). Now Leah has two boys, Ashley has two girls, Kristin and Allison each have a boy and a girl, and I have two boys. What in the world? None of us are even 30! I was sure that I was just going to be getting married by 30. It is like we all made a pregnancy pact. By the way, we didn't. Life is much more different than I imagined or planned. But I'm so thankful for it. I'm starting to realize that not until you give up yourself for someone else (husband and kids), that you have fully experienced life. Sure, I miss the times of sitting on the couch just hanging out with my friends; those were great times and really rich times too. But what we are experiencing now is much richer.