When Matt and I found out we were expecting, aside from being shocked, we instantly discussed what this new baby would do to our friendships. We have all heard stories about your friends’ schedule being booked (for the rest of their lives) all of a sudden and we began to worry.
Lucky for us we learned, through a mutual friend, that Lauren and Cody were expecting, too! We met and immediately started talking pregnancy side effects. This relationship continued for nine months and coincidentally enough, our kids were born less than 12 hours apart.
During those first few weeks at home between insomnia and spit up, Lauren and I felt very fortunate to have each other. We could count on one another for that four am text about lactating through two shirts or that 6:00pm text about a diaper explosion. Life was good, we had “couple friends” who just had a baby.
Around that time, another friend of mine, Elizabeth was preparing for her third kiddo to be born and while chatting at her baby shower, several of the moms were discussing MOPS and how they were anxiously awaiting its start date. “What is MOPS?” I asked and the moms began to explain…I was intrigued.
I called Lauren the next day and told her we needed to go. The stars were aligned and it just so happened to start a few days later at Fellowship Bible Church. We went! Yes, we were those annoying people who didn’t RSVP and showed up at the door.
MOPS-Mothers of Preschoolers-is an international support network of women who share the common bond of preschool age children. MOPS groups meet around the globe and commonly meet at churches. We were excited to instantly have several new mommy friends and be provided a couple of hours of mommy-time while learning and growing.
MOPS organizes guest speakers to speak on all sorts of topics: disciplining your children, how to keep the romance alive with your husband, how to handle it all and how to keep your sanity! Learning this was so refreshing! We were not the only two people going through the same thing and to our surprise, there were a lot of mamas who had been there before! We loved it.
I strongly encourage you to research MOPS programs in your area and if you have any questions, reach out to me or Lauren because as I said in the title, MOPS truly changed my mommy life!
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Vanessa lives and works in Irving with her husband Matt and daughter Caroline. She spends her days as a Corporate Communications Manager and her nights as a full time mommy and story-teller. Motherhood was a big surprise but she is loving every minute of it!
Majority of Mommy groups I’ve seen meet during the weekdays. As a working mommy, I’ve had a hard time meeting other moms with kids the same ages as my two kids to have weekend playdates. Any advice for working moms?
I’d suggest Meetup.com! I’ve had a lot of friends who’ve had success with Meetup groups. Like all mom groups, it can be difficult to just show up at an event, but sometimes that’s what it takes to get to know others who are in the same life stage as you. When I joined MOPS
( http://www.thetshirtmama.com/2011/12/part-of-community.html) and Baby Boot Camp, I went alone and really had to break out of my shell, but it was so worth it! Let us know if you find other ways!
I know there is one at Woodcreek that meets in the evenings. They call theirs Mom2Mom and it’s once a month from 7-8:30 p.m. and childcare is available-Abby is one of the moms who started it…[email protected]
I know there’s a few MOPS groups that meet in the evenings…you can do a search by zip code at the MOPS page http://www.mops.org/ and maybe find one…it’s definitely worth it!
Great post Vanessa, we sure do miss you up there! MOPS has been an amazing experience for me and I know a great ministry to other mommies.