Cat Rat Bat

It's a long story, but in high school, I spent a lot of time with a group of friends that we nicknamed the Cat Rat Bats. It would not be funny to anyone else but us, so I'll spare you the story. This is to explain that three of us had a cat rat bat reunion this last weekend. Of all of us, Jessie has remained the most connected to our now far flung group and she organized a mother-daughter weekend in La Conner for herself, me, and Cari. What's weird about this mother-daughter weekend, is that the three of us made up the mother generation. This makes me feel especially old. Cari lives in Vancouver BC and has 2 girls - ages 4 and 1.5. Jessie has a 5 month old girl and I've, obviously an Edie.

Girls weekend! No Boys Allowed! (unless they maybe want to swoop in and take all the daughters for the day so the mothers can drink wine, take naps, and get massages - then boys are totally allowed)

Edie had never met Senna, but Cari and I had hoped they'd click and they did. Here they are shortly after arriving, warming up to each other while coloring outside:

Each night, the girls would spend lengthy periods of time rehearsing a "show" that they then would put on for us. They would collect flower petals in a bowl all afternoon and we were to throw the petals at them to start the show. The shows were, truth be told, pretty lame in the end and mostly consisted of them running around for a minute and then forgetting that they were performing and running away. But watching them rehearse on the patio through the windows was amazing and hilarious. The first night, we attended the show on the beach. I think in this shot one of them is a bird and the other is "an Elsa", but after a few minutes of chirping/prancing, they ran to the other end of the beach and left us hanging. After watching some pretty major dramatics during their rehearsals, we had had higher hopes:

Aven:

Jess and Addie:

Coloring in their jammies;

The next day in La Conner:

This photo kills me. Senna did this gangsta pose for me and asked me to take a picture:

Decorating their 'mermaid mansion':

Their "pet" Katie (a dead little fish they found on the beach). And yes, that's a little pillow she's laying head on:

Edie singing Senna a mermaid bedtime song:

Senna singing Edie to sleep:

This is what happened when I asked them to do their best "mermaid poses":

The Moms:

The daughters:

Saying goodbye:

I'm not going to lie, it was a lot of work to parent 4 children under 5 for the whole weekend. If my child wasn't weeping and wailing because I'd packed lame pajamas when Senna had a nightgown, then Aven was demanding to be carried while Cari tried to make dinner, or Senna was flipping out about her improvised dress-up gown not looking like it should in her head. Sometimes all at the same time. And Jessie is in that 5-month old exhaustion phase that makes thinking about anything other than sleep (the baby's and your own) a challenge. At the end of each day, we were all happy but TIRED. 

That said, it was undeniably special to all be together after so long and be surrounded by all these beautiful and strong little girls. And to have another little 4 year old girly girl along for the weekend was awesome - of course it meant making sure that everything had to be 100% equal - right down to how many pieces of fruit each received on their dinner plates (eye roll), BUT it mostly meant that she had a partner in crime to put on shows, talk about mermaids and Disney's Frozen with, color, and play dress up. Most of my friends in town have boys and/or babies and this made for a lovely change of pace - and much less parenting on my part (because if Senna hadn't been there, we all know who would have been recruited to rehearse and perform in The Show). Every year will get easier and I do hope we make this an annual thing.