Circle of Friends

"Ainsley, you're a good friend."

This from the mother of one of Ainsley's posse, said after school choir practice when we were both picking up our girls. As she told Ainsley this, her daugher and Ainsley's best friend (let's call her Miranda) had snuck around the open car door to hug Ainsley in her booster seat.

Last week "Miranda" was very sick and missed almost the whole week of school. Apparently while she was gone, Ainsley and the two other girls in their 4-girl circle of friends (let's call them "Charlotte" and "Samantha," for all you SATC fans out there) made get-well cards during recess and slipped them into Miranda's cubby for her to find when she came back.

Awww.

Miranda's mommy, who volunteers in the classroom, was telling me how tight the girls are and how loyal they are to each other.

The loyal part I have absolutely seen in action. This fall, Ainsley told me she got half her class mad at her because a girl said something mean about "Charlotte" and Ainsley yelled at her during recess and made her cry, which in turn made Ainsley feel like a bully and start crying herself. Oh, the drama.

"It's like they're...they're..." fumbled Miranda's mom.

"Soul sisters?"

"Yeah! Soul sisters. That's exactly what they are."

See, I know what term to use, because I know all about soul sisters myself.

My sister-by-blood is a decade my senior. I love her, but our relationship is more like a mother-daughter relationship than a sister one. Not to say our moms can't be our best friends as we get older, but because my sister and I are really from two different generations and because she sometimes sternly helped to raise me, I don't feel like she gets me.

But my soul sisters...now, they get me. And you know who you are. You mostly make up the small but loyal comment section on this blog.

I am thrilled that Ains has her little posse. Miranda's mom was asking if we were planning on keeping our fourth of the equation at the school for the next few years because with the bad economic times, several in the 1st grade class are not planning to return.

And for now, we are. For a multitude of "right" reasons and one possibly wrong one: it's where her friends are.

Maybe it's a little premature to compare Ainsley's crew to the Sex and the City foursome. Though I can totally see Ainsley as Carrie in 25 years, living in a shabby-chic New York apartment, looking for love. Heck, she's already a prolific writer who loves shoes and cute boys, not necessarily in that order. But when you find a group of friends who love and stick up for you, it doesn't matter whether you're 6 or 36. Those are your soul sisters.