A few days ago, Ankur and I were trying to remember what we did for Christmas last year. I pulled up Google Photos and was reminded he worked on Christmas. Womp womp.

But then while I was hanging out in all those videos and photos from December 2022, I watched some short clips of Ishu. Like when he opened up his present from Gina Masi and Richard. And he couldn’t even say the word ‘camera.’ We listened to his little voice on repeat. He couldn’t pronounce his r’s. He sounded like the sweetest little kid. Ankur and I looked up at each other over the phone and both of us were like, “I DON’T EVEN REMEMBER HIM TALKING LIKE THIS EVER.”

These little monkeys change so quickly, so fast. That – no matter how hard you try – you really cannot remember them in exactly every phase. It all blurs together. And Ishu’s still young! At only 3, you’d think I would remember EVERYTHING with such precise detail. And I cannot! It changes so much so fast.

Before we moved to Chicago, I remember writing a blog post about how I was nervous about making friends as a mom. Like, because of the pandemic and because of this new phase of life I was in, I would forget how to put myself out there. That I’d just be an awkward person and not know what to say, how to say it, overthink it, mess it all up, all of it.

And now.

Here I am, with two children.

And it’s not that I’m sitting in a pool of friends.

But I’m smiling at that version of myself that thought it would be hard because I’d be AWKWARD.

It’s not hard because I’m awkward.

It’s hard because you’re just trying to chat up a nice mom and then all of a sudden, your child is running into the dirt with no shoes on and you SPECIFICALLY SAID WE ARE NOT TAKING OUR SHOES OFF TODAY.

There’s no time to think things like, “Hm. How am I gonna ask this nice lady if she wants to be my friend?” Or, “I wonder if she’s a cocktail drinker or a coffee drinker and am I going to mess something up by suggesting one and not the other?”

NONE OF IT MATTERS.

You gotta do things FAST.

It’s not weird to be like, “YOU LOOK LIKE A NICE PERSON. CAN WE BE FRIENDS?”

Or even, “YOU HAVE A KID. I HAVE A KID. LET’S BE FRIENDS.”

Just the other day, someone dropped by the building to give us this Baby Bjorn bouncer she was selling on Marketplace. Ishaan came down to the lobby with me and as I was pulling up my Venmo, she talked about how she has a 3-year old son and 10-month old baby. She works at Northwestern. And now we’re going to set up a playdate for our kids when she gets back from holiday travels.

Or we went to this event over the weekend. And I said two sentences to a mom. But before she left, I threw my number at her. Because why not? Ha.

There’s no time!

No time to second guess yourself. No time to wonder if that mom thinks I’m weird.

I am who I am.

I like friends.

If you’d like to be mine, here I am.

Anyway, I think there was some sort of point I was trying to make with the story at the beginning of this post. Something along the lines of how quickly our kids change. But how quickly we, too, evolve. And the things that once made us so hesitant and nervous are just ‘whatever’ now because who even has the brain capacity to overthink our true personalities, y’know?

Becoming a mom has me accepting so many things about myself that I once used to overthink.

And that’s pretty cool.

Okay. Those are my thoughts for this Thursday morning.

Happy 4 days ’til Christmas!