A review.

The girls.

I'll be honest before I even start – I've been up much too long. Today my sister & I, after several weeks of plotting, pulled off a surprise party for my mom's 60th. I picked up my mother very early, to keep her away from the preparations. Josh, who some of you may remember as the officiant of my wedding, came in town sneakily, so I also stayed up too late Friday night visiting before I had to be up at 9 to distract the mom. It was a wonderful day and an enormous surprise. We did so so well. I'm seriously chuffed.

Since we put a lot of effort into our own mom today, I started thinking about the time I spent being one this past year.

It strikes me what a huge thing it was, Davey & I being "parents" our first year of marriage.

We weren't very good at it for a long time. I asked advice from Courtney a LOT. My sister seemed unsure, quite often, of my parenting decisions. I wasn't sure either.

I expected more out of them than they gave, that is for sure. It's not that they were stupid or anything, I just think they weren't sure what to make out of their new surroundings. And since I was ONLY EVER a resourceful teenager in Dallas, it was hard to understand.

At the same time, they asked amazing questions and forced me to think about verbalizing my stance on many things. We had some really reflective moments. As well as some silly ones.

I'll never forget – I think it was at New Years – when we came home drunk, and so did the girls, and Vanessa asked me "Do I seem drunk?" and I said, "No! Do I?" And then we just fell to the floor in a pile of giggles. That makes me both the worst & best host mother in the world.

What happened with Davey & I was the most dramatic. It was both the best & worst part of the experience. It was the worst insofar as we fought WAY more than we ever had. There was a lot of tension and resentment when we didn't expect it. It was best because we really had to confront some basic truths about ourselves, ESPECIALLY in light of us possibly having children. I mean, it is really apparent now that our schedules are not conducive to having a family, so we've been discussing what to do about that and I'm glad we're doing it NOW as opposed to when we have some new baby and we're shocked by our own situation. And it's apparent that I am very attentive to the needs of everyone but me, esp the kids and NOT Davey. And that David can be enormously jealous of other people getting that attention when he is used to it. And how it is soooooo easy to forget, in light of people really NEEDING you, that you MUST make your partner the main priority, or it will all disintegrate.

In the end, we came to understand how enormously fulfilling the entire Children Endeavor can be, yet… we agreed that if it can't happen for us, that's OK.

As in, if we keep trying to have kids and it doesn't seem to be happening, we will move on with our lives with the idea that we CANT and WONT have kids.

I deeply love the idea of having David's child. I think about it a lot … more than I should, probably, given that I don't like kids much to start with. But he's gorgeous and I think he'd be an awesome dad, etc. And as long as we like having sex with each other (which is a lot), it will always be a possibility.

I won't know until we know for sure that we CANT, but we've pretty much decided that if after several months of trying, if I don't get pregnant, that is a sign we will do something very different with our lives. It will be ok. We will cry, I am sure, but… it's ok.

This entry isn't what it was supposed to be.

Those girls did more for us than they probably know.

I'll write the entry this was supposed to be another time.