Australia, You Are Lucky

Last weekend we lost some friends to Australia. That is to say we have some Australian friends who have lived here a few years and last weekend they moved back to Australia. I am not happy about this one bit. Not only did they take their rad selves back, but they also took their insanely adorable son Lenny with them. He is one week older than Isota and kind of her soulmate/boyfriend. We basically have wedding plans underway for the two little nuggets.

We met Dan and Alice when Alice and I were both pregnant and enrolled in Childbirth Preparation classes through our hospital. Joe and I clicked pretty quickly with them, which seems to be kind of a rare thing when you are an adult. It's hard to make new friends as a grownup. When you are younger you have the confines of the school day, or a dorm room, or whatever to throw you together and help you with those bonds. And you have the luxury of time. When everyone grows up, they get lives and jobs and kids and all of that stuff precludes all the easy going hanging out that seems necessary to find and keep a proper friend. You just have to work so much harder at making friend time as an adult. Coordinating schedules. Making sure the kids are all taken care of. Making sure you yourself can stay awake for a night out. Etc. But when you do find people that you click with, you really want to make that friend time happen. It's a little more precious. You want to hang on to it, preserve it, foster it.

That's Dan and Alice to us. Add in to the equation the fact that our kids get on so well, and it's pretty perfect. We noticed it from the very first time Lenny and Sody met - they were just itty bitty things, couldn't do much more than lay on a blanket, but still we saw how they gravitated toward each other. They would kind of stick together, roll to each other, grab each other's hands. Very very cute to watch your tiny baby make her first friend. We all didn't get to hang out nearly enough over the past year - jobs and schedules and lives be damned! - but we already miss you guys. We will think of you every time we read "One Wooly Wombat."


the happy couple meets for the first time


hanging out at ten months old


Isota on the last night she saw lenny

(really, this face is because she was waaaaay past her bedtime - but in her heart of hearts I think she was missing him)