I can tell that hurts

"People grin and squeal at her toddler, but nobody asks how Nicole is doing. And if they did, the answer would be: not great. She feels like she's failing at parenthood, wifehood, and personhood as she tries to adjust to mothering her first child, build a life in a new city on a shoestring budget, support her husband Dan's artistic ambitions, and make friends beyond the perfunctory playground chitchat (what even is gentle parenting?). Nicole hates to admit it, but she's deeply lonely, and wonders if Fern, her three-year-old, is her last and only companion in life. Not to mention she's getting a little bit too jealous of the people sleeping in NyQuil commercials... Until she meets Lou. You'd think that the prettiest mom at the playground, the one wearing cool jeans and an effortless aura of old money, would be insufferable. But Lou is down to earth, has an artist husband too - the charmingly sexy Emil - and seems to be the first person in years to actually want to seek out a friendship with Nicole. Her perfection sometimes rubs Nicole the wrong way, but when both couples get together, friendship fireworks go off, and the phrase "having a village" never made so much sense.