My New Endeavor and My New Girls

Thought you all might like to see pictures of how I'll be keeping myself occupied for the coming months:



Knox is a friend of Cole's from church who was born the day after Cole. His babysitter will be our babysitter when she recovers from some surgeries. Until then, I'll be keeping Knox during the week. Today was the first day, and it went really well. The boys got along great, although I had to find duplicates of every toy so they could have their own. They mimicked each other's every movement and had a really good time. Their nap times overlapped a little, which I wasn't expecting, so I got some me-time for about an hour, and then after lunch Gilbert was gracious enough to bite the bullet and come home (despite the possibility of entering chaos) to give me some grown-up time. We had a great day, but I am completely exhausted. And to think that the rest of this week I'll be going to a CPR class for three hours every night after keeping two boys all day. I just think I'm exhausted now.

Part of my exhaustion, however, is my own fault. Several (almost twenty) of the ladies from church went out last night after service for dessert and a movie. We stayed at Applebee's for two hours and then went to the 10 o'clock movie. I decided that I wanted to see P.S. I Love You, so I emailed the ladies I had addresses for, told them to invite whomever might be interested, and it took off from there. I couldn't believe the number of women willing to go out so late at night. I didn't consider the fact that going so late means freedom from responsibility and the guilt of leaving husbands with those daunting tasks that wear us out, because the kids are in bed.

It has been so long (probably since high school) since I've been able to go out with a large group of girls and not once think, "Why am I here? I shouldn't have come." I know this sounds awful, but it's true. Most of this is probably due to my own insecurities and timid nature, but I still feel this way. And I feel confident that I can write about these feelings honestly, knowing that lots of my girlfriends are reading, especially those in Bowling Green, because I know you know what I mean. Notice the word large in the first sentence. That is the operative word. I've been out plenty of times with one or two girls and had a great time. It's that large group that I usually regret going out with. I hope I'm making sense. Anyway, I didn't once feel this way last night. So I got in bed at 1 a.m. and wanted to express my thanks for such a great time. All I knew that would suffice was, "Thank you, God. Thank you." I just kept repeating it over and over. It was quite an overwhelming feeling. What a great and fun group of ladies God has so graciously placed me in the midst of. (The movie was great, by the way, and I didn't get harassed too badly for being the preacher's wife who took a bunch of ladies to see Denny Duquette's backside.)

On a totally different and random note--I also wanted to share a picture of Cole's leftover-spaghetti breakfast the other morning. He picked it out of the fridge and didn't want to trade it for anything. I decided this was not a battle worth fighting. And look what a good time he had! Breakfast is never this much fun.