Life...Unexpected......

I'm sitting here drinking a glass of wine while Paige sits by me and does her homework. I've been helping her on a few things and it's led me to ponder a few of (my) life's great mysteries:

First of all, I was not going to get married - ever. Then, I turned 24 and figured I'd better marry my boyfriend at the time because if I didn't marry him, then NO ONE would ever marry me. We all (well, not all of us) know how wonderful that turned out. Two years later, I was divorced and back at my parents. A risque divorcee at the ripe of age of twenty six....hahahaha! About that time, I met Gary and I've been with him ever since. We got married after dating for about 2 1/2 years. Looking back, I have no idea why we were in such a big hurry to get married. He and I both had craptastic first marriages (he's still got a bad first marriage - that crazy bitch won't go away) and I really don't know why we were in such a rush to potentially screw up another one! But, we got married and eight years later we have a happy home, a business, a great group of family and friends, Tyler and Zoe (from his first marriage) and of course, The Juicy. I guess you could say it's worked out for the best.

The second reason life is so weird is because I never, ever thought I would have a child. I had no desire to procreate. Health wise it wasn't a good idea and just common sense wise, it probably wasn't a really bright idea, either. I wanted it to be just me and Gary (well, me and Gary every other week we didn't have Tyler and Zoe) going out to dinner, traveling, staying out all night, you know - fun stuff! I never had a burning need to have kids. Don't get me wrong - I like kids - other people's kids. The kind that go home at the end of the night. The kind that throw up and poo on other people, not me. One night at a club that shall remain nameless changed all of that. Well, that, The Martini Ranch, and my husband having the shit scared out of him in a tornado a few days earlier. I guess he came home and figured he needed to spread his seed after his near death experience. Sooo....6 1/2 months later, out came The Juicy. The Juicy was obviously premature. She was born with brain bleeds, a hole in her heart (PDA) and under developed lungs. Weeks later, upon reading one of her very expensive bills, I discovered she had to be revived at birth - twice. That made me sick to my stomach. A few weeks after that, our phone rang in the middle of the night. I remember thinking, "This is it; she's died. This is why I never wanted to have kids." It was the hospital, but they were calling to get permission to insert a pic line because they were running out of places for her IV's. Nothing like a midnight phone call to scare the shit out of you. Paige came through, obviously. The hole in heart finally closed; her lungs eventually developed, and her brain bleeds disappeared without any long lasting side effects. I mean - how many of you have met Paige? Would you know her life had started out 10 weeks too soon? She's a little bad ass, I tell you.

So, I'm sitting here saying things to her I never thought I'd say in my life:

"It doesn't matter if you are the first one finished. Take your time and get it right." Or, "Use your finger math and add up the numbers to get the right answer." Oh, and "If you don't eat all your dinner, then no dessert." (God, that sounds like Pink Floyd..."How can you have any pudding? How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat") Sorry, I got off track. And my personal favorite, "Because I said so."

I realize how life, no matter your intentions, rarely goes according to plan.

Maybe that's the best part about life. Regardless of how you script it, life works out the way it was supposed to, whether you knew it was supposed to be that way or not. And personally, I can't imagine my life any different than it is now. I said good bye to singing along to the Supersuckers and The Reverend Horton Heat while hauling ass in my hot rod car six years ago, and started singing Barney in my SUV with Paige. Who knew?? At least now I have a cool little doppelganger to sing Hank songs with me. Deep down, I think that's probably how it was supposed to be all along. I'm living the life I was meant to live :o)

Have a good evening!

Kelly