Ahh, College Days Friday, Apr 11 2008

On Sunday I will be gathering all my little sorority chickadees together (I’m the advisor) for a “workshop” on “risk.”  Which basically translates as, “Please do not do all these stupid, stupid things.  Because of  liability and rules and laws and such.  And also because they are bad.”

Which makes me feel just a lil’ bit hypocritical.  Because y’all, it’s not like I’m a saint or anything.  I mean, I was a pretty good kid in high school and didn’t even have an alcoholic drink till my freshman year in college.  I’ve never smoked and I’ve never done drugs.  But I can assure you that waaay back when I was a college girl, I certainly flirted with some “risk” “management” “issues.” 

Like this particular incident my senior year.  When I was the chapter president.

We decided we wanted to have a party and get a male stripper.  No, I don’t really remember why.  We may have discussed this in a meeting.  We all pooled our money (at least it wasn’t sorority money!) and someone went out and hired a stripper and got her boyfriend to buy us lots of alcohol.  (Why?  Because not one of us was 21, ironically.)  

On the appointed night we went to her townhouse.  I think we thought the stripper was coming dressed as a cop (?) and we ordered pizza and the “Pizza Guy” showed up, who of course turned out to be the stripper.  And lo, it was totally icky and awkward.  To cope with all this weirdness, I began to drink rather a lot. 

After the stripper was finished stripping, he went upstairs with a couple girls to smoke pot.  And I was hanging out outside with some of the other girls and someone asked me to hold their lit cigarette and I took a big puff because I had never smoked before, and it was gross.  So I drank some more (not like, beer or anything, no we were hard core with our vodka and various mixers). 

Eventually we headed back to campus and there was a party in one of the halls so we decided to stop by.  We traipsed across campus with a backpack full of vodka, because that was how everyone walked around on Friday and Saturday nights, with backpacks on like they were really going to the library or something, rather than carrying around two six-packs in their L.L. Bean gear. 

So we were hanging out in this dark dorm suite with loud music and even though I went to a really small school, I’m not sure I actually knew anyone there.  Or maybe there was someone there I had a crush on?  The solution?  Drink more vodka.   Except, crisis, we didn’t have anything to mix it with.  Or chase it with. 

Then someone brilliantly suggested we chase it with WATER.  Like, I have no idea how that was supposed to help, but we thought it might.  And oh, I was so very drunk by then.  Eventually, my sorority little sister managed to convince me that we should go back to our suite and she would make me something to eat.  Something Pillsbury, I think, from one of those cans that pops open (biscuits?). 

I drunk-dailed (or actually, drunk-paged) a guy  who I had a weird “more than friends” relationship with and  may still have been on the phone with him when I decided that maybe I should go hang out on the cool tile floor of our bathroom instead. 

And that’s the night that I got sick from drinking too much for the first time ever.  A story I will certainly not be sharing with my chickadees. 

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Year in Review Monday, Dec 31 2007

Let’s take a little look back at 2007, shall we…

January – I get a yearly bonus.  Best Friend T turns 30, kicking off the year that the all of us will turn 30.  My brothers turn 19 and 24.  I feel old.  My dad and my brother go to Seattle to see my grandfather, which will turn out to be the last such visit.  Best Friend T almost goes into early labor and we host an un-shower “Spa Day” for her. 

February — T’s son, Master J, arrives on February 2.  Lending credence to the whole “Circle of Life” theory, my grandpa dies on February 5 and I am heartbroken.  My sorority girls put together a great recruitment and we gain several new members.  My schedule is abso-freaking-lutely insane for the entire month. 

March — I start a blog.  Currently, about 5 real people and 50 billion spammers read it.  My cousin and her partner are united in a ceremony in Puerto Rico and it turns out that my mother didn’t realize said cousin was gay until the wedding invitation came. 

April — We have what may be the coldest Easter on record and celebrate my mom’s birthday.  I go to a big conference in the mountains of VA and enjoy a few days of very little work.  I apply for a new job at work.  The Virginia Tech massacre hits very very close to home.  At the end of the month, I travel to Michigan with my parents for the first of my grandfather’s two memorial services. 

May — I interview and am REJECTED for the new job at work.  I begin to explore other options.  I accompany Best Friend T and her two kids to D.C. for a weekend and learn lots of lessons about parenthood.  The Boy and I dork out at Jamestown for the 400th anniversary.  My parents’ dog Faye dies. 

June — I ponder applying for jobs in Germany.  My entire family goes to IL for the second memorial service, and thanks to the general shittiness of the airline industry, arrives more than 24 hours after we were originally scheduled to.  Friend B turns 30.  Best Friend A’s husband leaves for 3 months in Italy and we think about making plans to visit him. 

July — I actually apply for two jobs in Germany as work kicks my ass.  At the end of the month I fly to Orlando with the president of my sorority chapter to attend our nat’l convention.  We cover the whole of Disney World in 7 hours.  It is hot as hell.  My friend M’s daughter M arrives 8 weeks ahead of schedule, tiny but perfect.

August — The Divine Miss M (T’s first kid) turns 2.  The Boy and I have a big fight and that whole “thing” seems to be over.  I go to Nashville for a work conference and am subject to more flight shenanigans.  I also buy a new mattress.  Friend B tells us she’s postponing her wedding.

September — My friends and I start a weightloss challenge, which I am sure to lose.  I begn to wonder if I will be stuck at this job forever.  My migraines return with avengence.     Nothing else of note really happened this month.

October — Best Friend A’s husband returns home from Italy just in time to celebrate her 30th birthday with us.  Friend E comes to visit from Atlanta.  Friend B tells us she’s now getting married in December and we all expend a lot of energy trying to figure out a bridal shower conundrum. 

November — With much trepidation, I turn 30.  I also get a nice haircut.  A neurologist tries to figure out why I’m having such migraine issues.  I randomly put in my resume for a couple other jobs.  Friend B has a bridal shower and a spa day.  At the very end of the month, the possibility of returning to New Orleans (temporarily or permanently) resurfaces.  Friend Al also turns 30.  We are all now old.

December — Friend B gets married and I am the ONLY PERSON AT THE WEDDING WHO IS ELIGIBLE TO CATCH THE STUPID BOUQUET.  New Orleans becomes a reality, at least for a 60-day temporary assignment.  I get to go back for a couple days to transition with the person who currently has the job.  I buy all my Christmas presents after Dec. 20.  I will spend New Years Eve with some of my best friends, doing two of our favorite things — eating and playing games. 

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Things I could/should/will blog about… Thursday, Dec 20 2007

Soonish?

In no particular order:

• The job I turned down today.  The one that was sort of in the boonies.  Okay, really in the boonies.  It was a promotion, but that was about all it offered.
• The way that I’m getting a reputation as a really good cook, but it’s pretty much a sham.  Basically, I’m a really good recipe-picker and I can, you know, follow instructions and occasionally I’m willing to take a chance and put my own spin on the recipe, the first time even, just to see what will happen. 
• The fact that it is December 20, which means, like, 4 shopping days till Christmas Eve and I?  HAVEN’T STARTED SHOPPING.  I was waiting for my paycheck, you see, and I know what I want to get everyone so that is a start, no?
• The two hours yesterday afternoon that my heart was in my throat — it started with my new girly doctor telling me I had lumpy breasts during my annual exam and hmmm, there was one lump and she didn’t think it was anything but maybe I should get it checked out and yeah, she thought I should do it before I left town for two months “just in case,” because that’s not something you just want to wait on.  This was followed by the imaging center saying they could fit me in if I was there in half an hour and me undergoing an ultrasound while trying not to panic and I think I really only stopped WRITING MY WILL IN MY HEAD when the radiologist told me it was nothing, NOTHING to worry about at all, thank god.   And then I swore to myself that I would do the monthly checks just like I told the doctor I do, when I don’t really at all. 
• Watching my baby brother sing “Ave Maria” last night at choir practice all by himself and I could barely look at him because it would make me cry.  Who is this kid?  Wasn’t it just, like, a year ago he was born 6 weeks early, weighing 3 lbs., 4 oz., and then he was a precocious 5 year-old who walked around on his tiptoes all the time and believed any white lie I told him??  And now he’s 19 and a sophomore in college?  Like, when did that happen? 
• And finally, what about the fact that I volunteered to sit for Best Friend T’s kidlets tonight so she and her hubby could go shopping, despite the fact that she and the kids and the hub have all been sick with the PLAGUE for more than a week and really, her house should be under quarantine and no perfectly healthy person (like myself) should be admitted?  But yet, babysit I will and will probably willingly give them kisses and nibble on their delicious little faces and wipe noses and get myself thoroughly covered in little kid germs and end up sick as a dog just in time for the holidays and I will have no one to blame but myself.  It’s just that they’re so darn cute and I have to get my time in with them now before I go away for two months and POOF when I return, they’ll probably be 19 years old too.  And in my experience, no self-respecting 19-year-old will let you nibble their cheeks. 

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Commitment Phobia Wednesday, Dec 5 2007

I’m not going to talk about “skydiving” (or moving to New Orleans) because I have no clue what the eff is going on or how this whole thing is going to shake out. 

Instead I’m going to get all political and shit.  Less than a year from now we will elect a new President and I’m still not sure which candidate I’m rooting for.

I am a Democrat.  Period.  I vote Democratic, always.  I’m not going to go on at length about why I’m a Democrat or why it’s better than being a Republican.  If you’re a Republican, good for you.  The only time I have ever in my life voted for a Republican was when I voted in the Virginia Republican Primary, just so I could vote against Bush twice in one year.

So anyway, I think the Democratic race will come down to three people — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.  

A lot of people HATE Hillary.  I mean, really really hate her.  I have heard her described as “evil,” which is a word I generally reserve for, you know, the Sadam Hussein’s and Adolph Hitler’s of the world.  I would looove to have a woman president.  I think it’s about damn time.  And I think Hillary is as good a female candidate as anyone else.  But frankly, my fear is that if Hillary becomes the nominee, people will pour out of the woodwork to vote AGAINST her.  Just on principle.  I think she will lose and lose very, very badly. 

Barack.  Barack Obama.  That’s just a fun name to say.  I also think it’s about time to have a minority president.  Or even a serious minority candidate who’s not Jesse Jackson (don’t get me started on Jesse Jackson).  I really don’t have a firm opinion on Barack.  He seems like a nice enough guy, and smart and capable.  Solid.  Interesting.  But I don’t know, I guess I haven’t caught the Obama fever yet. 

So that brings us to the white guy — John Edwards.  First, I think John Edwards is cute.  Dreamy, even.  I greatly admire his wife.  I was backing him last time because John Kerry was not the candidate I really wanted to vote for.  Edwards seems the most charismatic of the three.  Charisma is big with me.  He doesn’t have a lot of experience, though. 

Of course, none of these folks is or has been a governor.  Being governor seems to be the best prerequisite for getting elected president (Carter, Reagan, Clinton) if you weren’t the Vice President.  There is one Democratic governor in the running (Richardson) but I honestly don’t know a lot about him. 

I guess I need to do some homework.  Our primary isn’t until after New Hampshire and Iowa and Super Tuesday and by then, I have a feeling the landscape will be a lot less crowded with candidates. 

I love election years!

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Veterans Day and Uncle Bill Sunday, Nov 11 2007

I jokingly have always referred to Nov. 11 (Veterans Day) as my Birthday Eve, and deeply appreciate the fact that a federal holiday falls so closely to my birthday because it basically guarantees that I get a freebie day off on which to celebrate, well, me.

But in all seriousness, Veterans Day is, to me, one of the most meaningful days that our government has chosen to commemorate. My father is a 23-year Air Force veteran. I grew up in military communities all over the world and he deployed during the first Gulf War. I know firsthand what members of the military and their families give up on a daily basis to ensure our freedom. My wonderful grandfather, who died last February, was a member of the “Greatest Generation,” a John Wayne lookalike who enlisted in the Marines during WWII and fought in the Pacific.

However, when I think of a veteran, the first one that comes to mind is Uncle Bill. He is a man I’ve never met, but one who has achieved a hero-like status in our family. Uncle Bill was the older brother of my grandfather, the oldest of my great-grandfather’s five children. My great-grandpa was a veterinarian and cattle farmer in a very small town in central Illinois. Our family was pretty prominent in this small town, which is to say that a great deal of the town was related.

From everything I’ve heard, Bill was a sharp kid — smart, witty, funny. He was a good student and went off to college at a challenging private liberal arts college in IL (the same college both of my parents would graduate from 40-some years later). He majored in English, acted in drama productions and served as editor of the college paper. After college, Uncle Bill eventually returned to his hometown and became an English teacher at his old high school.

I believe he was drafted into service in the Army after WWII began, and was sent to Europe, where he served in Holland. Like any good English teacher would, Bill continued writing, in the form of long, chatty, descriptive letters — to his parents, his brothers and sister, other family members and friends, students, etc. It was nearly the end of the war when Uncle Bill was killed — some of his fellow soldiers were guarding a border one night, he went out in a jeep to take them dinner and drove over a explosive device. He was buried in one of the American military cemeteries in the Netherlands. After his death, the family collected all his letters and had them published in a book for family and friends.

When my father was stationed in Europe, we had the chance to visit the cemetery and see Bill’s grave. It was especially meaningful because my parents had chosen to name my youngest brother (who at the time was a newborn) after Uncle Bill. A couple of times we attended a Memorial Day ceremony at the cemetery, where family of the deceased were honored guests. Coincidentally, Uncle Bill is buried not too far away from his brother-in-law Bob, the husband of my Aunt Elizabeth, who had also been killed in WWII.

It’s funny, but I’ve always felt that my immediate family had some weird connections to Uncle Bill — echoes of his personality, maybe. I mentioned that my parents went to the same college, and that’s actually where they met and fell in love. My parents and my brothers and I have all acted in drama productions over the years, like Uncle Bill, and we’re really the only ones in our extended family who are into the performing arts. And I’ve always been a writer, like he was, and I served as editor of my college paper as well. Plus, I’ve read some of the letters my father wrote to his parents while he was stationed overseas, and I can see the same chatty, conversational tone that Uncle Bill’s letters had. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if my Dad had a lot of his uncle’s personality.

I have always wished that we hadn’t lost Uncle Bill during WWII, because I really would have liked to get to know him. But I’m thankful for him, and my Grandpa, and my Dad, and the millions of other men and women who have served…those who died and those who lived who tell their stories.

(I don’t have a picture of Uncle Bill, but that’s my Grandpa in his Marine uniform…he was very handsome.)

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Memories of Birthdays Past Wednesday, Nov 7 2007

After MUCH discussion and MANY e-mails, my friends and I finally figured out what we’ll be doing on Saturday night to celebrate my birthday (my birthday is actually on Monday night, but we’ll be celebrating on Saturday night…whatev…it’s a long story).  So, that caused me to jump into the wayback machine and remember some of my other 29 birthdays (not all of them, ohmigod, we’d be here for 3 days):

1st Birthday — I had a broken leg (no joke, my mother put me on a table to change me and I rolled off and had a cast on my leg before I could walk) and they were trying to diagnose unknown food allergies so I had some sort of citrus birthday pancake made out of rice flour (irony alert — the undiagnosed allergy was to oranges and tomatoes!).  Seriously?  Saddest 1st birthday child ever, with my little cast and my flat little birthday pancake with no frosting. 

4th (?) Birthday — All I remember was the awesome Winnie-the-Pooh birthday cake my mom made. 

8th Birthday — Another birthday party, another leg in a cast.  This time it was a full leg cast, as about a month before this birthday I broke my leg very badly roller-skating.  I never skated again. 

10th Birthday — The 10th birthday is a watershed birthday for military children, as it is when you get your military I.D. card.  I swear, it seemed like a big damn deal back then.  I do not know why, except that I lived overseas and once you had an I.D. you could carry it around with you everywhere and lose it and get yelled at by your parents a lot.  I had a ’50s themed party and my mom made me an awesome skirt that had a shoe instead of a poodle and a bobby sock that made a pocket. 

12th Birthday — Trip to an indoor swimming pool (Germany had these awesome restort-style indoor swimming pools ) and then pizza. 

14th – 17th Birthdays — Slumber parties all, no doubt, and I can’t discern one from another 10 years later, as they certainly featured the same cast and the same activities and likely the same angsty teenage drama.

19th Birthday — Sophomore year at college, and I very clearly remember that I had a couple tests the following day and maybe a paper due or something and lo, it all sucked very very hard. 

21st Birthday — Alcohol.  And more alcohol.  Actually, I’m pretty sure it fell on a Thursday and that night I went with my sorority sisters and some other friends to a line-dancing joint (oh god) and not one but THREE of my sisters met their future husbands that night while I drank.  And then the following night I had dinner with my parents.  Then the night after that I did the big 21st birthday crazy ass bar hop. 

22nd Birthday — I got a ticket for running a red light.  Damn police officer.

24th Birthday — Coincided with the day we returned home from Illinois for my grandmother’s memorial service. 

28th Birthday — I had a boyfriend.  Somehow that didn’t improve the birthday situation all that markedly. 

29th Birthday — I spent the weekend with a bunch of girls at a resort/spa with lots of alcohol and pampering and a relaxation room.  That DID improve the birthday situation markedly. 

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BFF (Best Friends Forever) Thursday, Oct 18 2007

My best friend A turned 30 on Saturday.  We had a good old-fashioned slumber party planned, complete with dinner and cupcakes and board games and hairbrushing and manicures.  In the end, we didn’t actually stick around for the slumbering part, because what Best Friend A didn’t know was that her husband would be returning that evening, a day early, from a 6-month deployment.  He had secretly contacted Best Friend T and we had conspired to have another friend pick up at the airport and arrive just in time to wish his wife a happy birthday.  It was great.

2007 dawned a bit ominously, because it was the year that all of my girlfriends and I would turn 30 — first Best Friend T in January, then Friend B in June, Best Friend A in October, and then both myself and Friend Al in November. 

In the case of Best Friend A and Best Friend T, I have know these girls since the first year of high school.  For 15 years.  For half our lives.  And the thing is, we’re still best friends.  We’ve gone from exchanging gossipy notes in junior English class to exchanging gossipy e-mails while at work.  Our marathon phone conversations in high school and college may be a little shorter now and accompanied by shrieking children, or held while we’re rushing to and from work and school and classes, but we still talk constantly.  We see each other every week almost, sometimes more than once.  We still have sleepovers and movie nights. 

15 years of friendship hasn’t always gone smoothly.  There were times when we were fighting or weren’t speaking at all, for months or even years.  Our lives went in wildly divergent ways and we all met different people and had different experiences and made other friends who enriched different times of our lives.

But I can say now that my two best friends today are the same women I would have said were my best friends 15 years ago.  Last night we saw a high school acquaintance who thought it was so great that the three of us had stayed so close.  I hadn’t really thought about it before, but I guess it is a little unusual.  It’s amazing. 

I’ve played witness to everything that has happened in their lives for the last 15 years.  I worried when A decided to leave her friends and her family and her job to move north with her boyfriend and Iwas so happy when he finally proposed to her.  I stood by their sides at their weddings, and I’ve watched T become a mother. 

We’ve laughed together and god knows we’ve cried.  We have more inside jokes than I can count.  We’ve eaten a lot of dessert and probably drank our weight in Diet Coke.    We grew up together.  We became adults together. 

I have no idea what the next few years will bring.  There’s a good chance that we won’t always be living within the same 30-mile radius, but the best part is that I think our friendship can withstand distance.  They’re as much a part of me as my blood family is.  They’re my BFFs.

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There’s This Guy… Thursday, Oct 11 2007

Supposedly, when you get to be my age (almost 30, gulp) and you’re still single, you’re friends are supposed to be jumping all over themselves to set you up on blind dates.  I base this assumption on years of a steady diet of chick flicks and TV shows (think “When Harry Met Sally”). 

I am here to tell you that NO ONE has ever offered to set me up with anyone.  Oh sure, we get through the first part of it okay: “Hey there’s this guy I work with (or friend of my boyfriend’s or brother-in-law) and he’s cute and I think he’s single…” 

And then that sentence just hangs there and I’m all, “Uh, okay, thanks for the bulletin.”  I never get to meet said cute guy and I certainly never get fixed up with anyone.

(Actually, I stand a little bit corrected because just now the phone rang and it was the long-distance boy with whom I have a dysfunctional, possibly completely dead relationship, and you could sort of say that I was “fixed up” with him by my former boss, but for the purposes of this blog it’s not the same thing.)

I’m not sure why I don’t have a social calendar chock full of blind dates, but it could be one of several reasons, I suppose:

1. People don’t go on blind dates anymore?

2. My friends secretely think I’m ugly or have a boring personality and they don’t want to make any single guys they know suffer through a dinner with me?

3. My friends are big chickens who don’t have, say, Nora Ephron writing a script for them?

Ding ding, I think we have a winner! 

A couple months ago I was sort of mock complaining to Best Friend A (a teacher) about never being fixed up with anybody, and she was all, “Well, I only work with two guys anyway.”  But feeling sorry for her poor, perpetually-single friend, she started investigating one of the male teachers. 

Who, it turns out, is in our age bracket and is single and actually went to our high school (he graduated several years before us, but we knew his younger sister) so now she’s trying to figure out how to orchestrate a “meet cute” moment between us without having to come right out and say, “Would you like to be fixed up with my single friend?” 

So, that could be interesting.  Stay tuned!

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A Wealth of Material Tuesday, Oct 9 2007

On Saturday evening I got all dressed up and went to a wedding reception.  The bride in question was a member of the sorority chapter that I advise and she is really one of the sweetest girls I’ve ever met. 

The wedding was held at 4 p.m. in a town about an hour from here, on the eastern shore of VA.  There was a small reception after the ceremony, and then the invitation also included dinner and dancing at 7:30 p.m. at a local reception hall. 

Because Saturday was also my college homecoming, there was no way I was going to make the ceremony, so I RSVP’d for the reception.  I knew that several other of my sorority girls would be there, so I didn’t feel too self-concious about going by myself. 

So, as I was saying, on Saturday night I got all dressed up and went to a wedding reception.  And that’s where this entry branches into two separate but somewhat related stories and rants:

1. One of my most socially awkard moments EVER.

2. “Fashionably” late is not so fashionable any more and being late is just plain rude. 

(Actually, I could add another one to my list — it’s a little ditty called, Hey girl in the big white dress, you’re the bride so tell your mother and your mother-in-law and the D.J. and the rude cater waiters to stuff it)

 If I could figure out how, I would create a rockin’ “Choose Your Own Adventure” blog entry, but since I’m low-tech, we’ll start with…

AWKward:

I had seen the reception hall place many times, but had never been there before Saturday night.  The reception started at 7:30, so I was careful to get there by 7:20. There were actually several rooms inside, which meant that there were a couple wedding receptions and a class reunion and I didn’t even know what else going on.  I found the right room and looked inside to see 10 or 12 tables, most of which only had 3 – 4 occupants at the moment.  People were eating their salads but the bridal party hadn’t made their entrance.  It was sort of dark and I kept looking around and squinting because I didn’t recognize a damn soul.

I double-checked to make sure I was in the right room.  I asked if there were placecards anywhere.  Two of the tables had reserved signs on them, but apparently the rest were just a free-for-all.  I wandered about, desperately hoping that there would be SOMEONE I knew.  I felt like the biggest idiot alive. 

Finally I thought that I’d just wait outside the room and hopefully one or two sorority girls would show up and we could get a table.  And that was just about the moment that the DJ started announcing the parents and the bridal party.  The bride was in tears because her parents had momentarily stepped outside and, thus, were not there when they were announced and she couldn’t get the announcer to wait five minutes. 

Actually, the first words the bride said to me, while looking completely harried, were: “Don’t ever get married!” 

Eventually I just sat down at a random table and introduced myself to the two other couples there and finally, like, 20 minutes later someone I halfway knew showed up.  She looked as lost and confused as I had probably looked and I saw her sit down at some random table, so I got up and dragged her to where I was sitting.  For which she was eternally grateful. 

By the end of the night, there were 6 or 8 people I knew there, which leads me to the second part of this entry.  Tune in later.

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The Cool Aunt Thursday, Aug 9 2007

In the past few years I’ve taken on a new role in life, one that I completely enjoy — that of the “cool aunt.”  As both my brothers are younger than I am, and are (as of yet) single and childless, technically I’m not an aunt at all.  But I like to think of myself as the cool aunt/godmother/general all-around awesome person in the lives of my friends’ kids.

I’ve mentioned before that watching my friends become mothers has been amazing.  First it was my friend B, who’s daughter Lil’ A was born 6 years ago.  Then my best friend T had her two kids, and now my friend M is the latest to join the mommy club.  It’s been kind of tough, too, to be one of the kidless ones, but seriously the good outweighs the not-so-good.

I think my best friend T’s journey into motherhood was the one that was most significant for me.  After all, we’ve known each other since we were 15.  I knew her before she met her husband.  I was her maid of honor at her wedding.  I knew that she and the mister were trying to start a family and I was one of the first people she told when she found out she was pregnant.  I shrieked with joy when she told me it was a girl and organized a baby shower and started counting down the days to her arrival. 

And then the Divine Miss M (one of our nicknames for her) arrived and suddenly there she was — a whole new person.  She turns 2 on Sunday, and I can’t believe how she’s grown and changed.  She has a personality.  She has her own thoughts and opinions and mannerisms.  I look at very early photos of her and can’t belive who she has become.  I hope that I will always be in her life, cheering her on at every milestone, listening to her drama, just being there for her in a different way than her parents.

T’s first baby wasn’t even a year old yet when she got pregnant again.  When she found out the baby was a boy, I was a tad disappointed — the Divine Miss M was so much fun and I liked picking out cute pink outfits and girly presents, which she never liked anyway.  When Master J (nickname we have for her son) was born, I think we all kind of thought he would be like the first one.

But it hasn’t been.  To my surprise, my relationship and bond with him may even be stronger.  He’s at that great giggly smiley stage now, and I can make him laugh like nobody else.  He’s just an absolute sweetheart and I fall to pieces every time he gives me one of his crooked grins.  Soon he’ll be crawling and walking and chubby baby thighs will turn into lean toddler legs but I hope he never loses that adorable nature.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I start spoiling my friends’ kids the minute I know about their existance.  I looove to baby shop and the kids in my life have received lots of clothing and toys.  But I’ll also change diapers and babysit and push the big-ass double stroller up a hill and be spit up upon and help give baths and read bedtime stories and retrieve pacifiers that have been spit out for the 756th time. 

Hopefully someday I’ll have my own kids, and clearly my love for them will be immense and fierce.  For now, I’m the cool aunt and I love it. 

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