Oh, boy, what a day

Today is my little Faerie's birthday. She's four. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

That sounds kind of weird, but I don't mean it to. See, Faerie is my baby. My baby. The last baby I'll have, seeing as how I recently turned 35 and have always said that's where I'd draw the baby line. Not to mention that I had some issues with contractions etc. throughout my pregnancy with her, and have had two c-sections, so another pregnancy would probably not be a great idea anyway, especially as I tend to have lovely big babies (Princess was 8lbs. 6oz. the day after her due date; Faerie was 7lbs 13oz two weeks before hers. Keep in mind I am very small.) One of these days I'm going to try and dig up the pics we took of me a week or so before Faerie was born; I was HUGE. Anyway.) So, while I readily admit part of me really wants to have another baby...it's not going to happen. We're done.

So it's fairly hard/weird for me, to see my baby get older, and know that's it. We will never need diapers on a regular basis again. We will not keep a supply of onesies in our house; we've been debating how much longer we'll keep the stroller my dad bought us when I was pregnant with Princess and has now carried both girls longer than I did. We have a crib in the garage we won't be putting our children in ever again. No more big wobbly heads, no more big baby eyes.

Sure, there's a real upside to that. In our last we're-sad-no-more-babies chat, hubs and I spent some time discussing the great things about Faerie turning four. I'm 35, he's 36. When we're forty the girls will be old enough to leave alone in the house for short periods of time during the day; we'll have some freedom again. By the time I turn 50 both girls will be out of the house, at college (fingers crossed lol). Fifty isn't old, and we'll be totally independent again, able to go anywhere anytime. I have a career I love and can focus on more and more every day; hell, next year Faerie will start school and I'll be alone at home all day, and will be able to write solidly instead of killing myself to get 2k words in by one am so I can get at least six hours of sleep. I've lost all that weight, I certainly don't want to get pregnant now and have to start the whole process all over.

All good points. And not even the complete list of good points. But there is still part of me, will always be part of me, that hates these birthdays, that wants to add another birthday to our family calendar, that has a very hard time dealing with the idea that my childbearing years are past me; that part of my life, the pregnancy and baby part, is over. And yes, I'm sorry if this offends anyone--I have actually known people to be offended by this although I cannot for the life of me understand why--it hurts that while I have two fantastic little girls whom I adore and wouldn't trade for anything, I always wanted a little boy, and I don't have one and never will.

None of which changes the fact that my baby is four today, and she is beautiful and smart and funny and adorable, and everywhere we go people smile at her because she is the most charming little human who ever lived (save only her older sister, of course.) Today Daddy is taking her to McDonalds for lunch; he takes Princess for breakfast every year on her birthday (she loves it and so do we; he's really proud of creating that little tradition) but Faerie isn't a big breakfast eater so we've decided to do lunch for her, as we know she'll actually eat that.) It's her first year of doing McD's-with-Daddy, so we're excited about that. And we have lovely gifts for her, and tomorrow we'll put up our holiday decorations--we decided when she was born that in order to prevent her b-day from being overshadowed by the holidays we would hold off on decorating until after.

So happy birthday to my sweet baby; and if I'm a little maudlin today please forgive me.


In other news...

Bettie Page has had a heart attack and is in a coma. Please send your positive thoughts and energies to Bettie; she means a lot to a lot of us. (Yes, I have twice attempted her hairstyle; what girl like me hasn't? My face isn't quite the right shape for it, but it didn't look awful. I'm tempted to try it again now that I've lost so much weight, actually.)


And...oh, dear. I'm not going to provide any links, but remember back in September '06 when that poor girl decided the way to get her book sold was to encourage strangers to spam the acquiring editor? And how it backfired hugely, and the editor found out about it and was furious, and it was a big old mess? Yeah, someone is trying it again--different person, different editor, different house, but same BAD BAD BAD idea. Dude. This is probably the surest way I know of to get your book rejected. EDITORS ARE BUSY FREAKING PEOPLE. THEY DO NOT HAVE TIME TO SCROLL THROUGH AND DELETE A BUNCH OF SPAM ABOUT YOUR BOOK, OR WORSE, OPEN PHYSICAL LETTERS ABOUT YOUR BOOK. THIS IS SO UNPROFESSIONAL IT MAKES ME HURT INSIDE.

I don't know. Maybe I should link to it. I don't want to do to this girl what happened when the last one appeared on Miss Snark, but then, let's face it, I don't have one-tenth the readership our beloved Miss S had. But still. I get the impression the girl in this case is very young. I dunno. Someone should tell her to cut that shit out immediately though.

It's just such a BAD idea. So, so, so bad. I know it's tempting, but seriously, y'all, make sure everyone you know (none of my readers would ever do anything like that, I know) that while this may seem like a clever and fun idea, it is NOT. (Not to mention, there is no way you could possibly get enough letters and emails sent to even come close to swaying an editor.) Editors aren't stupid, and they aren't for fricking sale.

Grrr.