Sharing is always good!

If you are parents to be — or even if you have kids — and there are families in your neighborhood with kids the same age as yours, or on the way — make friends.

Going it alone works and having family around works too, but neighborhood friends can be lifesavers, and they can make the ups and downs of parenting all the more tolerable and exciting. Going through ear infections and croup with a commiserating cast seems to make it — for lack of anything better — not as bad as it seems. It keeps you from getting wrapped up in a ‘poor us’ mental state.

They can also give you an outside perspective that isn’t tinged with years of issues that typically come with family advice. You can also see how things are done outside your own family — you mean not everyone does everything the same way???? — weird, I know.

I know we lucked out with some of the best neighbors in the world that happened to have had their own kiddo (their first as well) a whopping nine days before our own and I don’ think I could ever show them enough appreciation for the help they have provided to us.

Sharing is always good!