I was outside this evening in our common outdoor area (we call it “the courtyard”). Eli and I were looking for ladybugs to bring home to eat the aphids on our rosebush. Yes, we have a rosebush. For the first four years we lived here, it provided one rose per year, then for two years it made two roses, and this year we’ve had three and there are four more buds! It’s exciting. Especially because I am not a gardener and know next to nothing about plants (aphids bad. Ladybugs good! That’s the sum of it.) so it’s very like magic. Seven years in this house, seven roses. The rosebush has some kind of spell on it.

Well, what it has on it is aphids and I sort of know they shouldn’t be there so we went looking for ladybugs. Didn’t find any. Found a woman and her ten month old baby girl, though. Neighbours I’ve never met. Then another woman with another baby girl came out of her house. They mentioned a third neighbour with a baby girl. I’m excited about this, too, because the place we live has a preponderance of boys. So many boys, ranging in age from 3 – 9. One girl (until this recent influx) among seven boys. Nothing wrong with boys! Or girls, either! I like there to be some of each. The circle of life.

It was so fun to be next to these two women talking about their babies. One baby is ten months, the other is four months, so it’s all naps and fussiness and milestones and teething. The moms are on maternity leave and are nearly finishing each other’s sentences because they are so grateful to have found each other, someone who understands. A fellow soldier. “Oh the naps will get better,” says the ten month old’s mother to the four month old’s mother. And then disappear entirely! I prevent myself from saying. Yay me, I am not that old lady who tells you to enjoy every moment JUST YET.

Meanwhile Eli, not used to not being the youngest person in the room, is running around, wearing only boxer shorts and four hundred temporary tattoos, waving a can of sunscreen, yelling, “I’ve got sunscreen and I’m not afraid to use it!”

We all laughed, some of us more nervously than others. Don’t worry, I also didn’t say. You’ll get it someday.