Anya

Part Something or Other: A Wrap Up (for now)

So in the midst of being pregnant with baby number 4, Freya has turned into little miss diva pre-teen with more attitude than should fit into such a small body. In spite of that she does well in school so we agreed to give her a birthday party down at the cove.



She and all her other preteen diva friends sent looks at the nervous, preteen boys and mostly they all looked at each other despite the fact that I'd hired a few of the musicians I knew from the theater. The music was great but they're all a bunch of nervous kids - just don't let them hear you say that. Anyway, I was cleaning up the last of the party when I felt those all too familiar labor pains...yeah, on the beach. Just what I needed...



After completing his ritual freak out, Alex ran up to the house to get Spencer. He convinced Freya it was in her best interest to watch her siblings even if it WAS her birthday and then we were off to the hospital.



We had a little girl who we named Retha. Like the others, she came out with a head full of my red hair. Eventually Freya lost some of her preteen attitude and developed real teenage attitude. She also stopped being nervous around boys. Thankfully, the teenage boy most in her presence was non other than Julian Ice - Tessa's son who was born on the same night at Freya. They got close...



And then closer...



That started happening all over my house...and Tessa's....and the theater. I'm a romantic but I really don't need to see so much teen love happening....

One night, Freya stayed out with Julian past curfew and she was escorted home by Hank. As soon as they were in the house, she scooped up Retha who was up late with a cold. I think she hoped Retha would protect her after Hank left.



I merely took Retha from her and shook my head. "Unacceptable Freya. Now go to bed, we'll talk about this tomorrow." She ran to the stairs in relief and about half way up stopped and slumped a bit. It had hit her that I wasn't letting her off the hook - I was torturing her...okay not torture exactly....

Meanwhile Zisa and Tyr were becoming great little kids. They played better than brothers and sisters should and when they got frustrated with each other they played chess instead of yelling. It was awesome!



On the morning of out 17th wedding anniversary, I walked into a flooded bathroom. Yeah - fab. I'm not a morning person but a bathroom full of water with a spouting tub adding more every minute...that just made my morning. When Retha crawled into the water filled bathroom and started playing and splashing I could have laughed and cried at the same time - in fact I think I did.



With a lot of luck and persistence, I managed to clean it all up AND fix the tub with time to get ready for the evening. Spencer took me out to dinner first



Then a late movie



Then we went to a quieter cove and walked along the beach until the the sun came up







At the end of every day, I can't help but laugh - even if it's been a hard one - because I'm surrounded by love and family.