Winey Mommy: mama views

Welcome to our first Friends You Love Blog Hop!

This month is about building friendships and making our existing friendships stronger...

We challenge you to dig into your "followers" list and find a follower you don't know well (someone who doesn't comment regularly) and reach out to them and ask them to do a guest post on YOUR blog. Link up with your guest post and have your new friend (guest poster) link up as well!

We will be running this blog hop every Monday this month, so spread the word, spread the love, and darn it, go make some new friends!

This week I ~~begged pleaded~~ asked a new favorite blogger, Daniele from Mama Views, to write a post. Daniele is a stay at home mama to two little girls ages 1 and 3. Her writing is beautiful, her photographs are nothing short of gorgeous. I am honored to have her write on my blog--and I hope you will go and check out her blog as well! She's a fabulous, fun blogger...you will totally love her. So kick back, grab a mug of hot coffee and relax. For now you will be enjoying her writing, her truths, her words...

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Do you remember your relationships with friends P.C. (pre-children)? Back when friendships were based on shared interests, hobbies, passions, love of the same booze...the important things.

Flash forward to the moment you became a mama. Everything in the world looks different once your bundle of joy is placed in your arms, and that includes your friends. It is inevitable that your friendships change once you become a mother. Whether your friends are moms too, trying for their first, or have no kids and never will- you see them in a different light.

After I had my first daughter one of my coworkers came to visit us in the hospital. We had been 3rd grade teachers together with rooms right next door to each other, and she had been my mentor and my best friend for the previous few years. She didn't have any children and was never going to. I remember thinking as she loved on my newborn, Oh my gosh. She has no clue how this feels. To suddenly have your heart living outside of your body. I felt disconnect. I couldn't believe that I was her even just the day before...before my life was changed forever by this baby. Let's face it, you think you know how it's going to feel to be a mom but you don't really know till you become one.

One of my next visitors at the hospital was one of my oldest friends from grade school and a mom of three herself. I also saw her in a completely different light. I was in awe! I was only on day two of the 24/7, soul-exhausting newborn care and I just kept thinking as she snuggled my girl, How has she done this THREE times?! And how gracefully! I'm a hot mess already! I had a new found love and respect for her.

During those initial few months after my first baby was born and I was settling into life as a stay-at-home-mom, anyone with a baby within a year of my girl could have been my new bff. I just felt this very strong camaraderie with other new moms...probably something akin to new soldiers as they finish boot camp together. You only know how it is once you've been there and you will always have that bond.

I even joined a playgroup when my daughter was 9-months-old (and let's just say that I wouldn't have been pegged as a playgroup type of gal P.C.) and made several new mommy friends that I still see today, though that playgroup isn't around anymore.

Now that I'm a few years and two kids into motherhood, I have a completely renewed and deepened appreciation for all of my friends. I feel no disconnect with any of them. My friends who don't have children remind me to not abandon who I was before. Often in the all-consuming whirlwind of parenthood you never even think of the life you had before kids. All I need is a quick get-together with one of those friends to get me back to that place. You need those friends just as much as you need the ones who can dish about spit-up and potty training for two hours straight.

My friends who are on the parenting ride along with me or who are just beginning on the journey to try for their first baby remind me that parenthood creates some of the strongest bonds that can ever be made. And while friendships post-kids can change and be different, they are still, or even more so rooted in what is important in life: Mutual passions and interests, support, love, a bottle of wine...the good stuff.

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Link up your posts below and hop around and meet some new friends! Maybe the blog you land on will be a new one for you or maybe their guest poster will be. It's all about making new friends!