I sure do. My oldest group of friends I've never met is a group of women who all "hung out" together on the January/February/March 1997 expecting message board on Parent Soup on America Online. How ancient does that make us seem? There's a cattle rancher, a firefighter's wife, a hairstylist, a nurse practitioner, a teacher. There are quiet women and women who could take on a truck driver and win (Cindy-girl, I'm talking about you!).
I've known these women for nearly 15 years, yet I've only me two of them in person. But I can tell you how many children they have (ranges from 1 to 9), what celebrity crushes they have, what their husbands' names are. We've gone through pregnancies, miscarriages, teething, potty training, illness, death, graduations and other life events together. I'm sure menopause is around the corner.
When our babies turned 1 year old, Parent Soup tried to make us migrate to the "Wonderful Ones" board, but we wouldn't hear of it. (Oh to have those kind of troubles today.) So we started an e-mail loop. We just e-mailed back and forth and copied all 15 or 16 of us on every e-mail. For a while, we met in an online chat room on Tuesday nights. Then life got busy and the e-mails came less frequently. But we still stuck together.
We're about 7 or 8 strong still and, thanks to Facebook, have experienced a resurgence in our connection.Our "babies" are turning 14 and our conversation is less about the kids as it is about us. I hope someday to meet up in person with all of the Loopy Moms.
But if I don't? I'll still talk about my friends from California, New Hampshire, Florida, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, Colorado and Hawaii.
Love you, Loopy Moms! You are all close to my heart.
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