Like mothers, like daughters, like sons.

One of the greatest joys of having children is reliving some of the things we enjoyed the first time around. How could I have forgotten the culinary genius of a perfectly cooked tater-tot? Delicious. Running around the playground is not just fun, but climb that ladder enough times and it's a great leg workout! The sheer joy my child has when I 'talk' on the phone to Elmo is so contagious that I may or may not have intricate and ongoing political discussion happening with him, and now with Abby Cadaby- my son's new love.

I am an only child, and as of now my son is as well. I loved being an only child. As I've grown older I find that one of the reasons I did is that whether I knew it or not I had a sibling, even if she had different parents and lived down the street.  I had a sister who just went home every once in a while. Sleepovers were big business in our world. We met in preschool when we were three and barely potty trained and come hell or high water we have been best friends ever since. When you have a friend like that, a friend without whom you don't have a single childhood memory in which she doesn't figure prominently, it's more than a friendship. She is my sister.

We've always done everything the same, even when we attended school on opposite side of the country. Even when we didn't speak for six months, when we finally did we found that we had still done the same things. Well, I worked at Barnes and Noble and she worked at Borders, so big difference there! 

We both married, divorced, and then fell in love with men slightly younger than ourselves. Finally all our childhood 'Let's Pretend' games came true...we were pregnant at the same time! We both gave birth to beautiful baby boys only six days apart and it was just perfect. At least it was until my husband got a job and we moved away, separating the boys when they were only ten weeks old.  It was heartbreaking. All of our dreams of being mommies together were ended just like that. 

I was lucky enough to visit her in Los Angeles this past week and it was everything we had ever dreamed of. It was just like we had talked about and dreamed of as we floated in the pool at eight months pregnant and desperate to beat the heat of a late July delivery date. Seeing the boys together I was astonished. Perhaps it's nature or perhaps it's nurture, but our boys are the same as we are. Flip sides of the same coin. Within moments they were partners in crime, two little twenty month olds working their mommies for all they were worth.

And they are worth a lot.

My son is perhaps a touch more verbal at the moment and her son is more physical, but together? There is nothing they cannot reach, ask for, cajole or pout for. 

My sister and I sat watching the two of them negotiate toys, learning to share with minimal fighting, and listened to their babbles and cracked up at some of the word combinations that came through as clear as day. And then we not lived through them, but experienced a sudden and happy understanding of how our mothers (also best friends- it's really too cute) could spend all day watching us play and enjoy it. 

The visit was all too short and I am already thinking about when I can bring my son back to see his cousin.

This morning my son woke up and asked for "Zu?"  My sister's son while being put in his car seat pointed to the empty one beside him and said "where baby?"

Guess they miss each other too.

When Stephanie Stearns Dulli (Minky) isn't California Dreaming and toddler wrangling she writes at Dial M For Minky and Twitters far too much. This is an original DC Metro Moms post.