Okay, Baby Girl has this friend. He’s a special friend, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to arrange for her to marry him one day when they’re 35 years old. Hank and Erin came into our lives in a really funny way that illustrates perfectly the unescapable impact of Mommy Brain.
I think I’ve mentioned to people in person, but not on the blog, that I was pretty much the only person I knew in real life who cloth diapered in TN. That’s mostly true. TONS of people here do it, which still blows my mind. Anyway, I posted some cloth diapers for sale on Craigslist (because, turns out, the sound of Velcro makes me want to rake my fingernails down my face and these had it). Erin was the mama who answered the ad and came over to buy the diapers. We made small talk for a few minutes and I even tried one of the diapers on her chunky monkey of a boy to make sure they fit him. I swear I remember thinking she was really cool and that I should ask her for her phone number (who knew you had to flipping date and risk rejection to find decent/fun playgroup moms?) so we could hang out, but I didn’t.
Fast forward to several months later. Actually, I don’t know how long it was. We’ll say months. I was a member of an online message board (I know, I am just as cool as you’ve always suspected) devoted to parenting/babywearing/other baby nonsense and found another TN mom who lived near me. We chatted a lot and made plans to get together. We exchanged names, numbers, etc and picked a date for her to come over with her son. Keep in mind we both have photos and first names on our message board profiles, so there’s no mystery there. As she’s driving to my house, she calls me and says, “Wait. What does your house look like again?” I tell her, and she starts cracking up. Until she pulled into my driveway, we never put two and two together and realized we had already met all that time before. She was the Craigslist diaper mom, of course. The rest is history.
The best part of the story is that Erin and I were pretty much separated at birth, we think. We don’t get to see each other that often, but she’s my very favorite blend of nice and sarcastic and witty and brilliant. It doesn’t hurt that she also knows the perfect time to use words like asshat. She creates fantastic meals that I occasionally try to copy and makes me laugh-snort at her Facebook comments. Isn’t that what we all want in a friend?
Okay, just kidding about that being the best part of the story. THIS is the best part: I was reading what I wrote about us re-meeting and thinking it might not be totally correct. I messaged Erin, laughing at myself and basically asking, “Um, how did we re-meet again? I’m a ditz and can’t remember what happened. I just remember the laughing.” She responded back with a totally different story about us meeting at my school to exchange a baby carrier (which I do remember), but I thought that happened like a year later. Awesome. So, we don’t know how we re-met and apparently we’re both a little fuzzy on details of any sort when it comes to this whole thing, but there you go. Sounds about right for us. You just pick whichever story you like best. Honestly, Erin’s version is probably the accurate one, but trying to figure it out is now its very own story. 
Our kids are about three months apart, and she just sent me some photos that go way back to when they were tiny (and when Hank was a chunker and not a beanpole!). We were very sad to leave them when we moved, and Erin tells me Hank thinks we live with the farmers (because his map has a picture of a farmer on the state of Iowa, of course). These two didn’t miss a beat, and were screaming jibberish directly into the other’s face 30 seconds into the visit. We spilled food everywhere, Hank gave Baby Girl a toy from his treasure chest for going poop on the potty (house rules), and Erin and I drank coffee with condensed milk in it (See? Brilliant, she is) and pretty much ignored them. My dream playdate.
