Stepping out of my comfort zone

I must say that I have some of the best life long friends around. I'm lucky enough to have had the same group of core friends (including my mom and my sister) almost all of my life. We have shared our first sleepovers, first cars, first loves, and the list of firsts could go on and on. Unfortunately this core group at this moment literally lives around the world, but because of email, skype, and cell phones we often don't feel that far apart. For this reason I had often felt unmotivated to really get close and get to know the people who surround me now; mostly my children's friend's moms whom the kids are in one activity or another together. Don't get me wrong, I loved getting to know them, I just almost left part of my heart closed to them because I felt like that "life long friend" position was already more than filled.
As my oldest started to go to preschool and do more activities and become better friends with children all of that started to change. I want to be the mom that is friends with the other moms, who is in the know about happenings at school and outside of school, and the result has been more than amazing. It has been such a blessing to get to know other moms who have the day to day struggles I have, and even more neat to notice that the kids that my kids love are the moms that I love.
There are definitely somedays when I wish I had my fabulous four standing around me at a kid's party when havoc is all around and I could just imagine what each one would say, but, thankfully God has placed even more blessings of friendships in my path that I can create "firsts" with.