Everyone, meet Mao...

This is my best friend Mia, but you can call her Mao (m-ou, like 'cow' with an 'm') ...

Since we haven't been doing a very good job at updating our blog, we'll fill you all in on a few changes we've made in the last several months. The biggest of all is that back about the time of my tubal surgery mama decided she had had enough with daycare and all the lovely bites, bruises and sicknesses that came with it and began exploring other methods of childcare.

We are fortunate to have some friends who previously employed a nanny to watch their son. She had quit because she was on bed rest with a baby herself and unable to continue working. Lucky for us, that was about two years ago and when we contacted her, not only was she interested in coming to stay with me, she also has a daughter about my age to come too!

Mao is 6 months my junior (almost to the day) and as you can see, much smaller. (We laugh b/c in real life I don't look quite as gigantic beside her.) I have re-named Mia -hence the Mao comments- to the point that now even her own mama calls her Mao. We share toys (sometimes), a secret language, pudgy extremities and cheeks, and a classic 'just starting to grow' bob hair-do.

Mia and Rocio (I suppose she deserves mentioning too ;-) leave around 3pm- while I am often still sleeping. When I awake, you can bet that the first words out of my mouth are "where's Mao?". Later in the afternoons I continue to look for Mao, and often pretend-call her on mommy's cell phone. I spend most of Saturday and Sunday calling for Mao as well, until she returns Monday morning and all is as it should be. It is hilarious, yet heart warming to see one of us spontaneously hug and or kiss the other - no doubt followed by a scream or a push.

We -of course- have our moments, as do any siblings (b/c essentially that is the nature of our relationship) but despite the silly jealous arguments over toys and mamas, at the end of the day we really do enjoy each other's company and have grown to be the best of friends.