Trifecta

We used to be pretty fabulous.

On a Friday I'd leave work, pick up a bottle of wine and meet Amie and Mags for gossip, dinner and a giggle-infused buzz. Our husbands would give up on us for the night and whisper, "Did you have fun?" if and when we ever made it to our own beds.

Last night my phone rang at 8 p.m.

"Why are you answering the phone?"

"Because it rang."

Amie sighed, "I thought Mr. J would answer and I'd have to ask him where the fuck you are, bitch."

"It's bath time," I sighed as Livi started fussing from the tub where her dad was making horsey faces to try and keep her calm.

"Well, we want to open the champagne. Are we waiting for you?"

I thought of the bottle I bought Mags when we both realized we were pregnant, promising each other that the Trifecta would bust it open together when our little girls came and it was time to celebrate grown up style, "Nah. Get started without me. I'll be another half hour or so. I have to get her to sleep."

We hung up.

My little one giggled as I rubbed her down with lavendar lotion, slurped as daddy fed her the final Karo-spiked bottle before bed and whined as he swaddled her and passed her off to me. It was as I was getting her to sleep that I started to cry a little and thought I should just go to bed.

But, I didn't.

I walked from her room down the hall to mine as I pulled the spat upon nightshirt up over my head and grabbed a summer dress from a hanger. On slipped the Havianas, bag over my arm and a quick kiss to Mr. J as I pulled my car onto the road for the two minute drive to Mag's house. I almost turned around when I saw there was another car in front of her house, another visitor that I didn't want to pretend to be nice around.

But, I didn't.

I went in to find Mag's lovely neighbor, Elaine, was sitting on a kitchen stool and all my ladies were eating and sipping champagne. Elaine, who barely knew me when I was pregnant, visited me in the hospital right after Livi was born. When I was melting down over breastfeeding woes, she came over, sat in Livi's nursery and tried to throw me a parade because I was able to pump 3 oz, thereby making herself a saint in my eyes.

We laughed, we complained, we drank way too much.

After Elaine left Mag's shared in her southern drawl that only comes out when she's around her family, drunk or tired, "Y'all, Elaine told me today that I was mean to my mom when she was visiting."

Mag's gasped as her comment was met with big round eyes pointing at the ceiling while we filled our mouths with champagne to keep them busy.

"WHAT?! Was I?"

"Dude. You were scary."

Amie reenacted the famous meltdown Mag's had over finding her father's feet on her leather couch, the way in which everyone in the house tried to avoid eye contact with her and a variety of other splendid moments that included necessary follow up texts and phone calls where one of us referred to Mag's as "your friend" and the term "crazy" was synonymous with her name.

"I don't remember any of that."

I sighed as I made sure she saw the fake-judginess in my eyes, "Well, maybe that's best."

"WHAT?!"

"I hated coming over here. You yelled at me at least three times."

"I didn't."

"You most certainly did. You promised me a fun maternity leave, one in which we'd hang out and be new mommies together," I felt my voice becoming accusatory, "...and you lied! I saw you maybe three times over the summer. Mags who?"

She threw her hands around her face and drew her knees up, "Aaaaahhhhh! I'm a horrible person."

"No, you were just fucking nuts. Welcome back."

We laughed as Mags turned the conversation to her concerns over her sudden loss of hair while I tried to convince her that female pattern baldness is a side effect of pregnancy. She flipped me off, a strand of hair hanging from her bird finger. She noticed it and started whining, "Oh my God, I'm a horrible bald person."

Amie, hyper on champagne, began chatting in earnest as Mags and I both yawned, realizing our babies would be up soon, wanting mommies, bottles and big warm shoulders. It was clear she was going to have to crash in the guest room and before long Mags was offering her leftover Lortab from her childbirth stash.

"Jeanette, do you have anything to give Amie? A Soma, some Vicodin...? Anything?" Mags stared at me wide-eyed, mommy to mommy.

I smiled as I dug through my purse, "I have a ton of pain killers at home from the c-section, but all I have with me is Ibuprofen."

Mags groaned and whispered under her breath, "Go the fuck to sleep."

We giggled as we both tried to calm Amie down and finally I looked at Mags, "Maybe the five S's will work. Amie, come here, we're going to swaddle you." I rubbed my hand against her cheek as I shoved my mouth next to her ear, shushing, or as another new father friend of ours refers to it, "blowing a hurricane into my screaming kid's ear."

"I have no idea how I'm going to rock her, though."

Mags doubled over with laughter and bounced back up with the actual book, Go The Fuck To Sleep, from under a side table, "Amie, come here. Bedtime story."

We all laughed as we walked down the hallway, hugs around and a new kind of Trifecta emerging as our lives continue to thread through and around one another; a quilt made from laughter, new adventures, clinking glasses...

...and a tear here and there.