A brief history, in Jen’s words

We grew up in an intact family, one brother between us. My first fully formed memory is of mom peeking in the doorway of my Holly Hobby bedroom, waking me up to tell me she and dad were going to the hospital to have a baby. It was April 1978, I saw the silhouette of mom’s rounded front, the hall light shining around her. I vaguely remember sitting up and rubbing my eyes, but I suspect this is a detail I have added over the past three decades years.

Shortly after Sarah was born, we moved to a small, quintessential college town in upstate New York, where I spent the next seven years growing up. I lived on Church Street. I walked to school, crossing Center Street with the aide of Mr. Ross, the crossing guard with what I now realize was probably a beer gut but at the time only noticed because his reflective vest didn’t adequately cover it. I rode my bike to my friends’ houses and to the park. I stayed outside to play with all of the neighborhood kids until the sound of my mother ringing a cowbell called me and my brother home for dinner. Baby Sarah still was restrained to the homestead.

Long before the idea of this blog ever became a topic of conversation between me and Sarah, we would talk about how different our childhoods were, even though we grew up with the same parents, unlike many of our friends.

When I was 13 we moved to a suburban community a little less upstate. Sarah was 7. She grew up in a town without sidewalks. She grew up in a quiet neighborhood with perfect lawns. She grew up playing travel soccer and going to the mall and attending private school. Our formative years? Very different.

When I went away to college, Sarah would visit me occasionally. My “little” sister, so cute, coming to my team practices, the dining hall. When I graduated, Sarah lived with me for a summer. She worked in a popular restaurant, and we had fun sitting outside on the porch of the old Victorian house where we rented rooms.

But we were not always the best of friends. There was a long period before I went to college and too long afterward that we weren’t close. We don’t write about this much. As it turns out, those years that are part of our history don’t hold back our present. What’s most important now is that motherhood brought us back together. Not immediately, but it went something like this:

Sarah had a son. A day after I turned 30. I met him for the first time 3 months later. He was the first baby I fell in love with. And he enabled Sarah and me to repair our relationship. But at first, I was jealous. I had always wanted children. I was in a relationship. I was older. I was 30. And yet, she was a mother before me.

Twenty months later, my son was born. Now we each had a child. And we talked about parenting. But I lived in Massachusetts, and she lived in Florida, and our sons were SO different. And, sadly, I found it difficult to talk about the challenging parts of parenting with her. Take sleep, for instance. Jamis slept through the night at 3 months. B slept through the night at 3 YEARS. For a long time I felt this was a failure of mine.

Seventeen months after B was born, I had S. She was easier than B. A little. But still no Jamis. And all of a sudden I had a toddler and a newborn and life started moving at warp speed. And Sarah still only had one. And she still lived in Florida.

But then, Sarah had Max, 17 months after S. And I was there in the delivery room with her. And it was a miracle. So unlike giving birth to my own children and something every mother should witness, I think, another woman laboring and giving birth. At last, we both had two. And we were now living just an hour apart.

And then, I remember the day, Sarah found out she was pregnant a third time. And, oh, I was so happy for her. And so jealous, again. I knew I wanted three. And here she was, having another baby. She’d had the first grandchild, and it seemed likely that this next baby of hers would be the last.

And then five months later I was pregnant. And then Ethan was born. And then my E. (Sarah was in the delivery room with me this time.)

And finally, here we are, each with three kids. All six born in a span of less than seven years. And ever since we each had two, we’ve been talking about mothering more than anything else. The challenges. The joys. The humor. The frustration. The destruction!

But there is something that happened when we each had three. Some invisible bridge that we each crossed, meeting in the middle. And we started talking all the time. All. The. TIME. Maybe because of the sheer madness of daily life with three. Maybe because neither of us was close friends with a woman with three. Maybe because the need for adult conversation was just that much more. But also because it felt unique. Our challenges were unique. There weren’t friends to consult, or books. No one tells you how to sleep train an infant (or cosleep, for that matter) when you have two others screaming for books and stories and lullabyes from the other room. There are lots of willing experts who’ve written books about parenting. But they are about parenting One Child. Sure, a few even have a chapter about Welcoming the New Baby. But after that, well, you’re up a creek. So Sarah and I have rapidly become each other’s sounding boards. And safety nets. And best friends. And I am so grateful for my children. And for hers. And for the fact that all of them, all six, have brought Sarah and me closer than we’ve ever been. And I don’t think there’s an obstacle our friendship and sisterhood can’t overcome this time. Because parenting? That’s the toughest (and most rewarding) experience of all.

Which brings us to Momalom. What does it mean, you ask? Who knows? It’s just a word we liked. And somehow, it works. Like we do. It just fits. We wanted a place to write down much of what we were talking about all the time. It seemed likely that we weren’t the only moms of three living lives full of such joy and chaos. But the more we looked, the less information we found that we identified with. And so we’re here to have a sort of conversation, with each other and, we’ve learned, with so many thoughtful readers. We thank you for reading our thoughts and experiences, many of which are now influenced by the fact that there are three (rapidly growing!) children under each of our roofs.