The Next Generation

Once upon a time, in what is becoming long, long ago, I became friends with a sweet, wonderful guy named Brian. We were in APO together and he and Brent were roomies for a year of college as well. He was a groomsmen in our wedding. He is an all around great friend to all of us and has sent us some very cool gifts for our littles.  We, in turn, packed up our two month old son for his first first airplane trip to attend Brian and Linh's wedding in 2007.

We've now lived in different states for many more years than we've lived in the same, but we're still close friends. Brian, Brent and Gavin find each other online several nights a week to kill zombies together and he and I catch up on parenting and life on Gchat. All this leads to Brian and his wife Linh's lovely daughter Samantha.

We have only met her a few times, but snuck in a surprise visit when we were in Texas last weekend. I loved getting to see Brian and Linh, but better still was watching Maggie and Samantha interact. Their visit began with a doll exchange and they each took care of the other's baby while they "played" in this random field in TX.

They were initially cautious and clung to their parents, but soon began to wandered around together, babies in their arms. They chased each other, ran back to their parents, tempted fate by trying to reach the parking lot before their parents intervened, sat down, and gradually even began to talk a little bit. They were quite fine to be on their own and wandered away more than they stayed with us.

They were very determined in their voyage of random exploration and walked all around together. It was so sweet to see this next generation starting to make friends in just a few minutes of shared time.

I am also so glad we made it work and seized these few unexpected moments together. Horray for serendipity and for Gavin's tip that we'd be in the same town. I am so thankful to have the Vos for friends and feel so lucky that just maybe our kids will get to be friends too.