I watched the first season of Desperate Housewives on DVD over a year ago and theres one scene that remains vivid in my mind. One of the housewives, Lynette, is a former practicing lawyer who put her career on hold to raise a family. At the grocery store one day with her four young boys she runs into a lawyer she used to work with. The woman is lovely and she is dressed to the nines in a beautifully-cut business suit. Her hair is gorgeous, her make-up is flawless. Lynette, wearing clothes it looks like she might have slept in, is desperately trying to maintain both her patience and her dignity while simultaneously preventing her boys from reducing the entire place to a shambles. While the boys ignore Lynettes desperate pleas to behave, the former co-worker innocently asks how Lynette likes being a mom. Lynette summons up her brightest smile and cheerfully claims, This is the best job I ever had!

I like to imagine how the interaction would have been if the former co-worker were also a mom (and, um, if Desperate Housewives werent just a TV show). She would have assessed the situation in a heartbeat, told Lynette that her boys were gorgeous and admitted that dropping her kids off at daycare and going to work sometimes felt like a day off.

One of the unanticipated joys of motherhood for me has been the close bond I have developed with other moms. Not since college have I met and become friends with so many new people and while in college we were brought together by dorms, parties and midterms, this time our commonality lies in our concurrent entry into the hardest job weve ever had.

In parks, coffee shops and playgrounds I see groups of moms creating their own communities and support systems. Perhaps its because we know that doing this alone is just too hard. And even though we also know that theres not really anything our friends can do about our sleepless nights, our discipline dilemmas, our picky eater or the laundry piling up in the basement, just being able to say it out loud to someone who gets it somehow makes us feel better.

After all, who else but another mom could understand why sometimes washing my sons high-chair tray yet again makes me feel like I might completely freak out? Who but another mom can listen with genuine interest to a 30-minute lament about a post-baby muffin-top? Who but another mom can really appreciate that the idea of having another baby is, at once, both thrilling and terrifying? And during those exhausted, frustrated moments when I say that I dont feel like being a mom today, who but another mom could completely empathize while also understanding that given the chance I wouldnt change it for the world?

Moms understand that there is an element of both truth and fiction in Lynettes claim of, The best job she ever had. Sure, it is the most rewarding, fulfilling and important job weve ever had, but it is also the most challenging, demanding and exhausting. And so, we get together and we listen and we laugh and when someone needs to cry we know that thats ok too. And, over and over, we tell our friends that theyre wonderful mothers because we know that as moms we dont just take care of our children, we also take care of each other.

Sasha is the owner and founder of Sasha B. Designs, http://www.SashaBDesigns.com, an online baby boutique that specializes in beautiful, handmade nursing covers for breastfeeding moms. Our nursing covers make ideal baby shower gifts and purchase includes free gift wrapping with a matching gift card. Shop online at http://www.sashabdesigns.com/index.php?cat=1.

Sasha also writes an online column, Thoughts on Motherhood, that appears monthly on her website, http://www.sashabdesigns.com/info.php?page=8.