Do you think you are being a friend?

Boys, over the weekend we celebrated your 6th birthday with your first sleepover. You both invited your little crew of best friends – the same best friends you’ve had since the first day of Pre-K. Two school years later, two t-ball seasons later, some birthday parties, holidays and random play days later and you are all still best friends.

Boys cherish this bond and keep it sacred.

I know it means nothing important to you now – but one day 30 or 40 years from now, you will look back on this weekend and other weekends like it and have such fond happy memories.

Boys, I got onto you this weekend. Not just my boys – all 5 of you. You all were fighting over remotes and water guns. You were squabbling over who gets to go first at basketball and who could sit by whom. You all purposefully shot each other in the face with nerf guns and threw a ball at someone else’s back.

Boys, you are friends – best friends.

Friends don’t purposefully try to hurt each other.

Friends don’t use hateful worlds towards each other or bully each other.

I know that living in a small town, knowing each other since day one of Pre-K and attending extracurricular activities together tends to make you more like siblings than friends and I fully expect you all to have a riff now and then. But in our eyes watching over you all it looked as though it was one long fight.

This morning when I asked if you all have had fun, I got a unanimous yes all around – big excited yes’s and smiles and elaborate stories of all the adventures we had done over the weekend with your best friends.

I, of course, went on to tell the moms about fearing the whole night would be chalked up as a disaster – but that is the parent brain versus the child brain in any situation.

Boys, I want you to continue to grow and learn and hold closely your most precious friendships because they are hard to find – very hard to find.

Boys, as you grow up I want you to know some important things I’ve learned as I've grown up.

10. Always respect your friends' mothers.

9. If your friend is in need of your time or of your dime, give it freely and never expect it in return.

8. Share inside jokes with your friends. Lots of them.

7. There will come a time when your friend brings a girl around. She is 100% off limits to you forever.

6. Trust and loyalty are the ties that bind your friendship. If you do not have these two then what kind of friendship do you have?

5. Even though you may argue amongst yourselves, when someone else is bullying, have each other’s back.

4. If they are true, they will last – no matter the miles between or the months without talking, they will still be there.

3. A friendship should never be hard work. If it is it might be a toxic relationship.

2. It is OK to have more than one best friend. You should have a few. One to run with, one to think with, one to work with and the whole crew to play with.

1. Your best friends are your family that you get to pick to have in your life, so choose them very wisely.

I love you boys. And my "extra" boys who I bet will be around a lot.

- Momma

#meandallmyboys #howtobeafriend

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