Too soon to the party... once again!

Aaron and I met for the first time during orientation week of my freshman year in college. We started dating that February and knew within a few weeks that we wanted to spend our lives together. Of course, six years later I probably would laugh if a barely eighteen-year-old informed me that she was ready to marry her boyfriend of three weeks, but thankfully my parents didn't go into hysterics when I made that claim. Instead, they wisely guided us to make it through the two long years until I was able to graduate and marry my sweet Aaron at the baby-faced age of twenty and three months!

Aaron still had another semester left when we said our vows, so we returned to Wheaton as newlyweds, only to realize that we were too soon to the party. All of our friends were still living in the dorms, attending class, and eating in the cafeteria. It was awkward for them to be around a married couple. And so it was that with little money, few job prospects, and basically no life experience, we were set adrift to find our way without any peers to walk alongside us in our newlyweddedness...

Throughout the following years, we watched most of our friends from college get married, we moved several times, and we made new friends who were at various stages in the journey of finding a life mate. Soon we had seen many couples through the whole process and had a solid base of married friends. We could hang out without it being awkward, we could talk about married life problems, and we could refer to our spouses without everyone in the room blushing or giggling. Our days of lonely married life fading into ancient history, we decided the best choice would be to move along to the next life stage - parenthood! For some reason, it didn't dawn on us that again we would be the first to show up...

So here we are again, the first of all our friends our age who have made the leap to being parents, and it can be a lonely place to be. Now, don't get me wrong, we have many loving and faithful friends in every stage of life who share their hearts and time with us. But there is something different about your commitments and priorities when you are solely responsible for the care of a tiny person. Bafflingly, we have lots of friends in other places who are happily breeding. Our loneliness in parenthood doesn't extend to facebook or the blogging world. But right here, right now, we are the only parents in our close friend group.

It seems like it cannot actually be so... After all, we live in a pretty large city and come in contact with lots of people over the course of a week. I mean, we know other people with babies, just none that are at the same stage of life as we are... At church, there are lots of people in their thirties with kids around Quin's age; in Waco, there are plenty of pregnant teens; and somewhere (I'm sure) there are couples our age with kids. The problem is, I'm not entirely sure how to find them. Aaron and I are pretty well educated, we've been married for almost four years, we attend church regularly, and we're in our early twenties... oh yeah, and we have a baby! Somehow again we've made it to the party too soon.

I'm sure in a few years we will have plenty of friends with toddlers and babies. Life has a way of working these issues out. Someday we will look back and remember fondly the days of being invited to events at which we would spend most of the party trying to hush a hungry newborn. We will laugh when we think back on all the crazy things we did with our childless friends (with a baby strapped on our backs). It will seem ridiculous how uncomfortable some friends were with being in the same room while Quin ate, and everyone we know will travel religiously with a diaper bag. Questions like, "Wait, you can't drink when you're breastfeeding?!" will fade from memory as we surround ourselves with people like us.

... but for now, we are alone among our friends in this journey, and actually, in all its loneliness it can be a lot of fun! Just like it was fun to be married when our friends still lived in the dorms and worried about dates and flirting and nights of heartache, carrying a baby around when you're the only one who's got one can be quite a hoot! Everyone adores our boy and he is spoiled in all the attention he gets! Even if we have to turn down invitations and have people over here instead of going out, we have found ways to do so many fun things with the little guy along for the ride! He's been to football games, youth events, parades, game nights, movie-watching parties, and so much more. Nobody blinks an eye if he stays out after seven or doesn't get his diaper changed when he needs it because they don't know any better.
Experienced parents inform me, "Well, obviously we won't be there because that's after __________'s bedtime" but we can count on all our childless friends to be clueless about bedtimes, never too busy to hold our child, and always excited to see a little smile or an unexpected roll or even some sloppy drool. Everything baby-related is more thrilling to those who haven't experienced it all themselves.

So here we are now: lonely, grateful, and not a bit remorseful. I wouldn't change a thing, even though deep down I am looking forward to the days of playdates with all my heart! For now I can just hope that in time, they will come...