Friends Don't Let Friends Get Responsible All By Themselves

Zoey and Jace sprawled out on the living room floor, post-play, post-bath, pre-bedtime.

One of the more abstract parts of parenting has been doing it with friends. Watching the people that you care about taking care of people that they care about is a pretty pronounced example of maturing. I like watching the people we know multiply from two to three, and four, and sometimes more. It's exciting, as lame as that might sound to someone who isn't in the very middle of doing it. See, the guy who used to guard your cooler at parties is now standing over his sleeping son while his wife relaxes by the campfire with friends. That other guy who used to follow Pearl Jam around like a roadie, is now downloading bittorrents of Baby Rock CD's. It's a mesmerizing sign of what we're all capable of when we love something enough.

We don't get box seats to our friends raising families as often as we'd like but on occasion we get to see it up close, like last night, and it's far beyond thought provoking. We spent yesterday evening with our friends Jason and Kaylen and their children, Jace and Sophia. We nearly died at the hilarity of watching little versions of themselves running around our home.


Zed and Jace running post-water park circles around one another.

No doubt it's the same sentiment for them. I'm sure Zoey is the best and worst of both of us (mostly the best we desperately hope), and watching her run around her parents must be grin inducing for the people who know us best. Watching our kids play together is an easy kind of surreal to wrap our heads around.


An intimate moment amoungst friends...or the children of friends.

With luck Zo is every bit of our best parts. We want her to be creative and contemplative, cautious and energetic, considerate...we hope that she is fun and friendly and ambitious enough to find happiness more frequently than regret. We're excited to see what these little people sneaking in and out of the shadows of our friends end up being. You can imagine what each will be just by watching their parents, just by recalling all of the curious things about our friends.

It was a nice visit last night...nice to have company...nice to see friends that we see too rarely...and nice to watch the future unfolding before us in a pile of giggling pajamas and messy hair, piling on top of each other, running, squealing, and reminding us why we're all friends in the first place.


An invisible Sophia gets slathered with affection from her big brother and an excited Zed.

Weekends that used to be filled with weddings are now busy with water parks, and responsibility has replaced the selfish indulgences of Saturday nights, but that's cool 'cause we're watching ourselves all over again...giggling in pajamas and messy hair, piling high on top of each other. If this is what they call growing up it's a way better deal than what Peter Pan told us it would be.