So, you are a new mom and overloaded with advice? Veteran moms tell you to breastfeed, bottle feed, sleep with your baby, don’t sleep with your baby, use a pacifier, don’t use a pacifier and we could go on and on. Well, new moms, listen up for just one more piece of advice and it’s going to be the best one that you’ve ever heard. Start a monthly girls group!
Yes, you heard me right, a mandatory once a month girls’ night out (or in)! Let me tell you, those friends that you went to college with or grew up with will soon become hard to keep up with. Phone calls will become few and far between. The phone calls that you do have with them will end with “we’ll have to get together,” but you may never find the time to do it. Pretty soon, you’ll run into Sally (or wait, is her name Susie?) that you used to be so close with and you won’t even recognize her. And you’ll end that conversation with saying “We should get together!” But you know that you won’t.
Why do you need to talk to your girlfriends so often? Because they get you. Oh, your husband may be your best friend, but does he roll his eyes when you want to over analyze Meredith and Derek’s relationship from “Grey’s Anatomy”? He can be a dear and will listen to you when you tell him how bad your cramps hurt, but does he truly have an idea of what you are talking about? Your mother is great to go shopping with, but can you let go and tell her the nitty gritty details of your sex life? Your girlfriends keep your secrets and tell you how life really is. They celebrate with you when you have a baby and mourn with you when you lose a parent. They will always tell you how great you look and share their secrets on how they look so great. They love you unconditionally.
About six years ago one of my smartest friends had the most genius idea to begin a monthly card group. To this day, eight of us get together once a month at someone’s house. We leave our kids, husbands and worries behind. We fall off of our diets while eating snacks, appetizers, dinner and a lot of desserts. We drink our favorite wine, beer or drink of the night.
But the best part of our girls nights is the conversation. We talk about our kids, our husbands or our neighbors. We talk about whomever didn’t show up that night. We talk about TV shows, current events and a lot of topics that would not be appropriate for a little mom magazine. We come from all different sides of towns and don’t complain about the long drive. If it weren’t for this group, I don’t know that I would even see any of these girls. Our joke in our girls group is that someone is always pregnant or nursing. And that trend still continues to this day. Oh, and I should mention that we play cards too. Euchre, Texas Hold’em or Bunco, depending on how many of us could make it. There is a small pot for the winner and a small prize for the loser. Just enough to make it interesting. And trust me, if you want to be the best mother that you can be, a girls night out may be just what you need. It is something that you can’t get from a book, a class or hear on tv. That’s why I love girlfriends.
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(c) 2010, Hybrid Mom, http://www.hybridmom.com/.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service
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