An ode to my BFFFF

Oh, yes.  All the F's have meaning.  :)

We met about eleven years ago.

Our kids were attending the same preschool and after a few months of fawning over the adorable, blue eyed and blond haired kid with Down syndrome in my son, Evan's class, I decided that I would seek out his mom when I got the chance.

The chance came when Evan was turning four and we decided to have a party for him.  Since Nick was in his class (and I was in love with him), he got an invitation.

And his mom called me up, clearly emotional at the invite.  It turned out that it was his first invitation to a party and it was a pretty big deal.  Most parents of kids with obvious differences would probably agree.  We are all pretty sensitive when it comes to our kids being included and when it happens, we bawl.

One of the things I have come to realize about being a parent of a kid with Down syndrome is that when Charles was born, I was immediately given membership to a very cool and exclusive club.  I'm not saying all the members are awesome.  All Ds parents are not created equally.  We are not all "special" or "patient" or even "nice"; but, I have met some very, very cool people because of it.

Christy is one of these cool people.

So, we had our first phone conversation and by the time it was over, I knew that we would be at least BFF's if not BFFFF's.

I knew this because in the first five minutes I had already told her about my love affair with Dave Matthews and how I didn't want to actually, physically stalk him because I loved him so much that I didn't want to mess up his life.

Yes, I realize that this confession makes me sound like a lunatic.  (and just as a side note, I have calmed down over Dave Matthews, though I would never kick him out of bed turn down an invitation from him to play Canasta.  Jon Seda, on the other hand)...ahem...anyway...

I think the fact that she did not scream "WRONG NUMBER" and hang up on me, but patiently listened and then confessed her own super weird celebrity love affair fantasy cemented our friendship like crazy glue sticks to fingertips.

We were bonded for life.

I am grateful to her for so many reasons.  Here are a few:

1. I am kind of a shitty friend.  I am super demanding and I have very, very thin skin.  She lets me rant like a two year old who dropped her ice cream and patiently waits for me to stop my temper tantrum so I can apologize and we can move on.
2. Because of number 1, I have very few, real friends.  She is the kind of person that has people lining up to be her BFFFF and the fact that she gets me makes me feel pretty good.  
3. Even if I am not her number one BFFFF, she never lets on.  I am sure she reassures those other friends that they are number one with her AND THAT IS OKAY WITH ME.  But, I know the truth <<< wink >>>
4. She has my back, always.
5. She is incredibly funny and she has started her own blog.  I promised I would try not to be jealous even though she out-funny-ed me in the first day.  Remember number 1?  Yeah...

Here is the link to her super funny, new blog.  Please check it out, but don't leave me, okay?  I am ridiculously competitive and I have huge abandonment issues...