The Bon Bon Club 1985 to 1987 ~ part 3

   Linda's home was ground zero for Janice and I and frankly most kids seemed to feel the same way.  Her home always had kids there.  It was the one place that my baby M. would fall asleep at.  I would sit in her rocking chair and within minutes M. would be sound asleep.  I could be at home and she wouldn't want to take a nap period.  I thought about it and decided it must be the type of rocking chair, one with a little creak, and vowed to find one as close to it as possible (I did!).  

     It was at her house I got addicted to "International Cafe ~ Cafe Francais".  From there on out I had to have a hot cup daily.  Janice, Linda and I would be chatting it in the kitchen around her breakfast table and our kids would be upstairs in her daughters room or downstairs in her family room.  

     Those girls were so creative.  I think Lisa was the creative force of becoming the "director" of their put together dramatic plays they practiced doing.  Even my little E.  and Linda's little Julie, all of three years old, would be included in their big sisters and friends play.  There were times I'm sure they would have liked them to go off and leave them alone but truly they were wonderful in all playing together.

     We would get an announcement that we were to come downstairs, to sit on the couch and there was to be a performance for us to watch.  We dutifully would do as they asked, waited patiently, laughed a little as we waited and wondered what they would be doing and then their play would start.   Oh, how cute they each were.  How I wished I had made a home movie of those times.   To sit there and watch them put their little hearts into this production just for their mommies to watch was such a gift.

K. on the left with her friend Julia

     I always knew when Linda was home by looking out my big picture window and seeing her car in the driveway.  None of us had a useable garage to park a car in.  Not to mention the single car driveways were very deep to the rear of the house.  I didn't go over daily but my girls as soon as they were home from their respective schools always wanted to know who they could play with.  "Mommy can I play with Julia?",  "Mommy can I call Lisa?",  mommy this  and mommy that every day.  I loved this after our previous dead neighborhood.  I loved hearing them run in and out the front door, and run to the playroom downstairs at our house, the laughter, the fussing over a game or toy.  My children were content and happy.  I felt like we were living the life all parents dream of.


    I don't know where the Bon Bon Club came from but it became a common phrase that was said when the mommies gathered together.  Our dear husbands couldn't imagine what we must do all day with our kids.  It was a joke that we must sit around and eat bon bon's all day, never accomplish our wife duties on the home front.  Ha!  No, the Bon Bon Club was our reprieve, our reward for all we did do!  


     Somehow it started that we should all go out to breakfast after our grade school kids had been sent off and whatever children that didn't have preschool would come along.  Then other mommies would be included along with their kids.  We would descend upon some nearby breakfast spot, take a back large table with other tables added to hold our group and we would just chat away to our hearts content.  The little ones with us got their pancakes and were content to color or play with some toys we would bring and it was our escape for girlfriend time.  

My Love and E. with our dogs Heidi and Tess ~ Linda's house across the street

      Sometimes we did lunch when those of us with kindergarteners became 1st graders.  We all had late birds so they would eat at school.  The Bon Bon Club would eat out with whoever could come and we would try different places in our town or the town nearby.  


      Those were the years of get togethers for "Discovery Toys", "Jewelry Parties" and "Tupperware".   So many fun times for a good excuse to get out and just be girls.  There were times we just went over to someones home and sat down to relax.  Our kids were entertained and we had no worries.  We were all happy and isn't that what makes a happy home to have a happy mom?

     The year when chicken pox invaded one home, we all decided to just let the kids play together and hopefully get chicken pox to get if over with.  It worked at my house as all three girls within weeks either had come down with it or were just finishing the dreaded pox.  At week three we were done.  I suppose this wouldn't have been a good time for a new neighbor to have moved in with all the chicken pox going on and the kids outside playing together pox and all.   What a sight.


     We only lived in the neighborhood for two blissful years.  My Love had fixed our house up by remodeling the old kitchen into a fully functional new one with all the modern conveniences of dishwasher, disposal and a large gas cooktop.  We took out the breakfast nook and made it into a bedroom for K.  I tried to spruce up the front yard with flowers but I wasn't much of a gardener and tried hard to not kill them.  My Love and I decided that it was the right time to move with K. ending 1st grade and before E. would be starting Kindergarten.  We didn't like the public middle school or high school and couldn't afford to go private.  There had been a few robberies at one of the local shopping centers in broad daylight and I already started driving to the nearby town to do my shopping.

Little M. in our 1965 Mustang, our dog Heidi and me out in front of our house.  

     At one of our Bon Bon Club get-togethers at a neighbors house I broke the news that we were putting our house up for sale and that we were moving.  It was a hard thing to do because I loved where we lived.  I only wish we could have picked up this neighborhood and moved it to where we wanted to move.  I hated the thought of making my girls leave their wonderful friends but I knew that they would make new ones.  I only hoped that the new neighborhood would be a little bit like what we would be leaving.  I was determined to not lose my ties especially with Linda since our girls were so close.  I didn't want to lose these wonderful women who I laughed with and shared mommy advice.  What would I do without them?


     Linda, Janice and I still get together, sometimes once a year sometimes twice for breakfast or lunch.  After over 25 years our friendship has remained.  Our kids are all grown up, though I do have one at home still.  Linda is a grandmother and Janice's oldest son just got married.  They both moved to the town we moved to over the years but only Janice lived sort of close to me, still not the same neighborhood, and Linda across town.  It never seems like it was that long ago that we were young moms under the age of 30 with a bushel of kids to watch, a home to take care of, and car pools to take the kids to and from school.  There are many stories we each could share and laugh about still fresh in our minds.  We were lucky moms and wives to have the dearest of husbands who joked about our Bon Bon Club.  Linda's husband Mike coming home from work to find a house full of kids and us wives sitting over a cup of coffee or tea, simply living in the happiest of times.