First Franco celebrated his adult birthday in the old bathroom (which we finally can afford a light for!) while I cheered him on, still in my maternity wear.
We both may have had a slight Mid-Life Crisis, but fortunately kept from making any drastic changes. Franco started working more and more, if such a thing was possible, and I changed my hair from the awful style I aged into back to the original.
Snowflake Day soon arrived, and I received an unusual gift in the mail. Her name is Katherine, and she's purple--just like me! I love spending time with the little dragon, talking to her or summoning my friends for a quick chat.
But, perhaps the nicest gift of all: the girls came home for the holidays!
Mist beat her sister to the dresser, and immediately replaced the purple streaks in her hair with pink ones. It suits her perfectly, I think, and she's certainly a stylish young lady!
She's turned into quite the goth-enthusiast, just like me. I'm so proud of her, I don't know where to begin! Her time at military school made her very neat, always making her bed and tucking her things away.
Nymph, on the other hand, is still the sweet, slightly "off" little girl she was before she left. Sadly, they both left for their boarding schools right away, believing that they would be happier with a higher education.
Fortunately, we had a little ray of sunshine in the sadness of my girls leaving--Melody. She has lovely, light brown-red hair and loves the color blue. I can often hear her banging away on the xylophone in the nursery.
I must say that even the thought of my little girl aging up and leaving me is stressing me out! That's why Franco and I decided to have another go at this crazy experience of parenthood. Thank goodness for boarding school!
The next eight months of pregnancy were happy ones, indeed. Franco was making money at the office and sending it home, to expand the children's bedroom and even build another bathroom! I had my Melody to fill my days and snuggle with at night.
As usual, Franco rarely came home--with all his working overtime and sleeping at the office--but he called me every evening to remind me that he loved me, and that he was doing all of this work for our family.
When he did come home, he was still the wonderful father and husband that he had been for the sixteen years that we were married. He raced into the nursery to toss our little girl in the air . . .
And reminded me of my reasons for marrying him.
Everything was just . . . wonderful! I had Franco, I had Melody, I had daily phone calls from the older girls and Foam, who had decided to go with his big sister to the School of Peace and Love.
Then Melody turned into a beautiful little girl, and she went off to the LeFromage School of the Arts. I hated to see her go, but there was something nagging me, in the back of my mind. Something I had to deal with, but couldn't with my baby Melody around.
It began when I decided to go see my friend Amelia, to tell her about Melody's birthday and my own pregnancy, and discovered she was pregnant! I laughed about it with her, and we took turns feeling for kicks on each other's stomachs.
I asked who the father was, since I hadn't known she was dating anyone, but Amelia said that I probably didn't know him anyway. We enjoyed speculating about how our children might date someday, since I was having a boy and she a girl, but then it was time to leave.
After eating quickly at the diner, I wondered if Franco was home and quickly hurried over. I had told him that I would be sleeping over at Amelia's, but she had an appointment with the doctor that coincided with my visit.
So, I fished around in my pocket for the keys, stuck one in the lock, and opened the door . . .
