First Impressions

by Cathy

By now you must have read what prompted this baby of ours - this blog. The Uncorking of a Friendship explained how Patti and I met and how this all came to fruition.

Granted, I couldn't really stand her when I first met her back in January of 2006 - me, all pregnant and hormonal and she, all skinny and chirpy. But as Patti pointed out in that first blog post, as my belly expanded, so did our friendship and that of our daughters.

In every new friendship, there is always the memorable point in time when the relationship takes on a new form - a new meaning. Most notably, this is when one friend is invited/invites the other to enter their humble abode, their personal living space - their house.  The first time this happened for us was when Patti came over to see my new real baby - my second daughter, Ari - the one I had been hormonally pregnant with the entire duration of our friendship thus far. And what's shocking to me now as I think back on it, is that this happened a mind-boggling seven months after Patti and I met.

I had only been back from the hospital a few weeks when Patti and her daughter S came over to see the baby. I was appropriately sleep deprived and still sporting the tell-tale jelly belly. Wobbling around in my stretched out maternity gauchos and flowy top, I was eyeball-deep in new mommy mode. The kitchen was a nursery military zone - hardly a spot of counter or table was visible through all of the burp cloths, bottles, cans of formula, pacifiers, warming pots, bibs, blankets, napkins, towels, plates and utensils. Even the comfy loveseat in our kitchen was strewn with quilts, cloths and a giant boppy pillow. The floor in front of the couch was properly booby trapped with a bouncy seat.

When Patti first arrived, the baby was asleep so we had some time to sit out on my deck and enjoy the warm August night. We had no adult food or drink readily available in the house, which I didn't realize until we were chatting it up on the deck. Since I wasn't thinking straight, my husband was rummaging around our kitchen trying to find something to offer our new guest. Upon offering her a drink of cranberry/vodka, he quickly realized, after scraping around our freezer for a while, that we didn't even have a speck of ice. So Patti courteously sat there and drank her stacked, warm cocktail.

A few minutes went by and Joe slides the screen door open and pops his head out.

"Do you want a hard-boiled egg?"

Trying to keep her cheeks from exploding from laughter, Patti politely declined the tempting offer as I sat there with my eyes bulged out of my head, horrified. Of course if I were of sound body and mind, the Greek in me would have come out and I would have whipped up something from nothing. But for now, we had to contend with my sweet husband, (God love him) trying so hard to be a proper, respectable host. And he was doing the best he could considering the circumstances.

A few more minutes went by and out comes Joe. He plops a tub of industrial-sized hummus on the table and a plate of pita chips that were collected from the bottom 1/4 of the bag. Surprisingly, Patti didn't flinch. She happily sipped her flat cocktail and munched on the crumbs that she dipped into the big tub o' hummo. As if that weren't enough, considering how I looked and felt, she actually complimented me on how great I was rocking my mommy cleavage and how my hair looked like a lion's mane - all full, healthy and shiny. And that made me see myself in a whole, new, much-needed light.

I said to myself that night, that if a friend puts up with all of that and compliments me to boot, that is a friend well worth keeping. And I'm so glad I did.