Friday

I didn't sleep last night. Too much on my mind. Last month, as I held a beautiful new baby, I felt for the first time in my life, the longing to have a baby. But that doesn't mean I wanted that to come true. I just viewed it as one more step in my emotional healing. I think it's normal for people, male and female, to have the desire to procreate. I think women often feel the tug to have babies--it's part of their physical make-up. I just never have, because I've never allowed myself to feel things. So when I finally DID experience those feelings, it was rather overwhelming, to say the least. But, again, that doesn't mean I REALLY want another baby.

I dozed off and on throughout the night, having those dreams that are so realistic you think you're awake, but then you find yourself back in bed, slightly confused and wondering what's going on. I finally got up around 5:00. I wanted to do the pregnancy test, but Darrin got up with me, and I didn't want to tell him about the need to do one. This is the first time since December that I haven't shared something with him. It's not that I don't want him to know, I just can't deal with any speculations or what if's. When I have the test result, if it's positive, we'll talk. If it's negative, we'll be more careful. So I had to wait.

I did my usual morning routine, scriptures, prayer, blogs, e-mail. Then I did laundry and cleaned. Darrin mentioned I seemed a little more energetic this morning--which is funny, because I was actually exhausted. After he left I tried to continue working, but was too tired. I fell asleep on the couch for an hour, then showered and got ready to meet my friend at the school library to finish working on a book order list. Tabitha called Annie to see if she wanted to go with us and help process some new books. I talked to Janie. She's trying to arrange a double date with she and her husband, and Darrin and I, but we're not having any luck coordinating our schedules. We were planning on going tonight, but Janie's husband, Jim, told her they really needed to talk. That sounds ominous, considering the state of their marriage, but I told her that was DEFINITELY more important. Anyway, the logistics of the date are becoming too complicated for this week. I made arrangements to pick up Annie and keep her till after lunch.

We met my carpool friend and her daughters at the school. I set the girls up covering paperbacks, stamping, and labeling books. My friend and I worked on the list. We were able to spend about $5000.00 more, and have almost finished ordering the obligatory books. We worked for about 2.5 hours. The girls got tired after two hours (they worked REALLY hard, and made a huge mess), so we sent them to the playground to play. We finished and cleaned up, made tentative arrangements to meet again tomorrow to finish the list, then took the girls to Wendy's to eat lunch. I ran home, first, to pick up Adam and DJ to eat with us. The four girls sat at their own table and giggled. The rest of us sat apart from them and actually ate. By the way, the chicken spinach salad is covered in crumbled bacon and hard-boiled eggs--bleh!! Not my favorite, but I scraped out as much as I could, and ate some anyway.

We said good-bye to my friend and her daughters. Tabitha wanted Annie to stay with us indefinitely, DJ wanted to go renew his driver permit, Adam just wanted to do SOMETHING. I had a headache. We drove to Annie's home and made arrangements for her to stay the afternoon with us. Linda was there with the new baby--that was not helpful. I held him--no feelings of wanting a baby this time. We went home, I dropped off Annie, Tabitha, and Adam and took DJ to renew his licence. Then we picked up Adam and I drove them to the library, which is having a teen party this afternoon, at which they will show "King Kong" and serve pizza. I got home in time to intercept a phone call from my nine-year-old niece, Megan. She's in town and wants to play with Annie. This day keeps getting more and more complicated. Annie and Tabitah were outside riding bikes. I needed a break. So I arranged to pick up Megan around 4:30 (it was 4:00), and, finally, did my pregnancy test.

It was negative. I breathed a sigh of relief and started to cry. I think it was a combination of being tired and having a million different feelings all at once. I let myself cry for about five minutes, then shut down the feelings, gathered Tabitha and Annie, and went to pick up Megan. Since I had three very giggly girls with me, I decided the best thing to do would be to go to Walmart--larger space, lots to look at, and I could pick up some food for dinner. We got frozen strawberries and pineapple for smoothies, blueberries for waffles, and Canadian Bacon. We shopped for toothpaste--which takes much longer than normal when three adolescents are trying to make a decision together. Megan had to use the bathroom, which then made the toothpaste decision go 33.3% faster, but when she got back, she informed me that her underwear had ripped. So we went to the girls department for panties. Megan picked out the ones she wanted, then I got them matching yellow t-shirts from the clearance rack which had "cutie" across the chest. Then I checked out and herded them out of the store.

Of course, they had to change their shirts on the way home--more giggling. We got home to messages from Annie's sister, wondering what time to have David come pick her up, and from my sister, letting me know she was coming to pick up Megan. We got to work on dinner, as I called David and told him not to come at all. I was keeping Annie. He said his parents left money for him to take the kids out to fast food tonight, so I needed to ask Annie if she wanted to go out with them. I said, "You know she'd rather stay with me. I'm her "favorite aunt", and you're just the mean old big brother." He laughed and said I needed to ask her. So I said, "Annie, do you want to go out to dinner with the meanest big brother in the world or stay here and eat with your sweet favorite aunt?" Of course, she wanted to stay with me. David asked me when I became their aunt. I told him his mom had given me permission to do so. He said, "Okay, you're my favorite aunt, too." I asked him if he was angling for an invitation to dinner. He said, yes. So I told him to bring Scott and Gary and come. He asked the boys, though, and my blueberry waffles couldn't compete with Taco Bell, from their standpoint, so they declined. We made arrangements for him to pick up Annie around 7:00. That gave us half an hour to eat, which is not enough time. We forgot to allow for giggling.

David arrived as we were finishing our four-course chocolate dessert sampler. I firmly believe that if I'm not allowed to keep my visitors as long as I wish, and they are other people's children, I should send them home as hopped-up on sugar as possible. Annie made a bee-line for Tabitha's room and hid in the closet. Megan and Tabitha joined her. I shrugged at David, and told him he'd just have to let Annie stay. He gave me a look, then walked up to Tabitha's bedroom and told Annie they needed to go. He said they still had time for a short bike-ride if she hurried. He told Annie that Scott and Gary wanted to go ride on the ridge. She said she'd think about it. I told David to come downstairs and have some chocolate.

We went down to the dining room and talked for a minute. The girls, of course, couldn't stand not being able to hear what we were saying, and finally joined us. Twenty minutes later, after promising she could come back tomorrow, David was able to get Annie to leave. I sent Megan and Tabitha outside to play while they waited for Megan's mom to come, so I could have some quiet. It was not to be. Darrin arrived with DJ and Adam, who wanted to talk (LOUDLY) about the movie, and in spite of all the pizza they'd eaten, they ate more waffles and Canadian bacon. I left to go to the office to get some peace. I did some inventory, and worked on some customer files, then went home around 9:30.

Megan had gone. Darrin and I put the kids to bed. We chatted for about an hour. I didn't mention the pregnancy near miss. Not ready to talk about that yet. Then we went to bed. I'm tired.