Monday Monday

Monday mornings are (supposed to be) sacred to Laurie and I and our ever growing love of coffee, coffee products, coffee cake, et cetera. Two years ago we started our Monday morning tradition of dropping off the kids at school and then meeting at Starbucks (there is only one in all of Concord, so no need to specify) to catch up on our lives and our caffeine. Zach tagged along last year and would visit with Evan, who still has to come this year, which I think will, more than anything else in his life, get him excited about kindergarten next year. No more Mondays at Starbucks!! Of course I have exchanged bringing Zach along for bringing Rilla along, and we've missed a few weeks here and there, but overall this part of my week is very refreshing. The hardest part is getting out that door.
Recently I realized that Laurie and I share a few major life experiences, and although our friendship has been growing for seven years now (!) it still seems new to me in a lot of ways. I guess because unlike my other closet friends who I met when I was younger and grew up with - and I would include college friends in this - Laurie and I met when I was already married and a mother. So our friendship is based on our lives as adults, on the similarities we share in our cicle of  influence. When I consider my other closest friends, the years just add up - 23 years (Steph), 12 years (Tamara), 24 years (Marisa and Jennie) - so I can see why this friendship is still feels young. Both of us lost mothers, have stepmothers we are close to, we both had children one year apart, we both had to have surgery that left us infertile at a young age, we have both adopted children.  Those are major, life changing examples of things we have been through, but none of that even occurred to me until recently. All in all it is a very special friendship to me, and I love Monday coffee hour with her.