It Takes a Mother F'ing Village

 

There are no words to describe the amount of love I have for my child.  This love, however, does not always translate into my being everything that he needs.  There are limits on the amount of time I can spend down on the floor, coming up with new games to play and ways to entertain him.  I get bored after about 20 minutes of playing at the park.

 

Which is why Ben is so lucky to have so many people in his life who love him and love playing with him when Mommy needs a cocktail break.  Beyond Greg and I, we have our families, Callie and her girls, our many friends who have kids Ben's age, and some other special friends who do not yet have kids, but still love spending time with us even though things have changed quite a bit since Ben came around :)

 

One friend I wanted to highlight today is "Aunt Rachel", who is one of Ben's favorite playmates.  She is never shy to play silly games with him, create a new sound effect that he will crack up at, or get down on the floor to build him a fort.  She also isn't afraid of him when he gets whiny or annoying, which is a huge bonus as we are starting to transition into the 2's...

 

And in even more exciting news, Rachel and Peter are expecting a little baby of their own in January!  I cannot think of anyone who has built up as much babysitting/baby entertaining equity than Rachel has - so I cannot wait to jump in and be as involved in Baby Cougan's life as they are in Ben's!