I should have known. I learned my lesson about bragging about sleep when you have a baby, because the minute you do, the baby stops sleeping. But I didn’t realize that bragging about how amazing your PLANT is would be a death sentence for the poor thing. My neighbor was in the market for some new greenery for her condo and I told her she MUST get a peace lily because mine had died and been resurrected about a million times which is truly a miracle for someone with a black thumb like me. When I first started teaching 12 years ago in North Carolina, I walked into my double wide trailer (because my brand new elementary school was already overcrowded in year 1, and me being the last hire was assigned to the trailer out back which was absolutely terrifying to a brand new northern first year teacher during hurricane drills!) there was a beautiful peace lily plant sitting on my desk that my very thoughtful parents had sent to me. That plant survived the southern humidity while I lived there and the New England winter once I dragged it up to Boston and from apartment to apartment to apartment. It survived being neglected when I went on vacations and neglected when I wasn’t on vacation and just forgot to water it. This peace lily had more than nine lives and could withstand the test of time. Until I went ahead and told my neighbor about it and quickly after the poor plant shriveled up and died. I gave the old girl a solid month to come back to life. I proudly displayed the lily near my front door waiting for it to come back to life, but no such luck. I had to give my 12-year-old plant the proper burial last night and threw her in the trash, but not without remembering all the good times we had together.

So now I want to talk to you about my friend Alicia. What does my friendship with Alicia have to do with my dead lilly? Not a whole lot, except for the fact that like that plant, our friendship has withstood the test of time and distance. And without having to “water” our relationship and don’t see one another often enough or even talk on the phone as much as we’d like to, our friendship is very much still alive and we can pick up right where we left off. (Wow, this analogy sounded so much less cheesy in my head than when I put it on paper. Roll with it, alright guys?) And Alicia is the reason I ended up in North Carolina in the first place. After meeting in college and taking classes together, Alicia decided that she was going to move to North Carolina to teach and I decided I’d follow her down. Fast forward 10 years and we reconnected this past weekend after figuring out we’d both be in New York and seeing her again made me feel like I was 21 again…minus the fact we were toting around our kiddos and buying them cotton candy instead of beers. But I wouldn’t trade it for one second.

Alicia’s daughter, Maddie, is absolutely adorable. I had followed her blond ringlets and piercing blue eyes on Instagram for years and was thrilled when Alicia asked me to photograph. And when I proposed the fair location to Alicia and she agreed, I was even more excited (I had tried to take pictures of Leo at the fair the week prior but taking an almost two year old boy to a county fair with tractors makes it really hard to get them to explore anywhere else.). I am absolutely loving what we got and only wish you could hear Maddie’s adorable voice when you view these pictures because kids who can’t yet say their “R”‘s are the absolute cutest.

Maddie wants to be a ninja when she grows up so you can imagine our excitement when she won a real pink ninja sword at the duck pond.

We grabbed a few pics at the cornfield down the road. (County fair? Cornfield? This shoot makes it sound like I live in the boondocks.)



Real live doll right here.

Maddie girl, it was SO FUN to meet you and spend time with you.  Thanks for being such a great model and friend to little Leo.  Take good care of your mama for me.  She is a super special one.