Happy 12th Birthday, Michael!
There’s a lot to write about today, but I’ll start with the
one piece of news that’s been on my mind since this morning.
We – I – didn’t want to risk messing up Michael’s reputation
on his big day, so Ethan, Ehlana, and I took his gift over to him right after
breakfast. That worked out fine,
especially since it was just him, Jake, and Rebecca there; and he liked the
video games we’d picked out for him too.
Since he had thank-you hugs for Ethan and Ehlana, I’m sure they sensed
what I did when Michael’s hand touched mine when I gave him the gifts and
cards; but I seriously doubt it had the same impact on them as me.
More than anything else for his birthday, Michael wanted to
spend the day with me.
I certainly wasn’t expecting that, and I’m definitely not
ready to handle it yet either. It took
more than a little self-control to stay and finish our little visit, but I
managed; and Ethan and Ehlana helped me by keeping Michael, Jake, and Stephanie
busy until we could reasonably make our escape – I mean head home and get
started on the yard work.
Thankfully, the yard work kept me busy almost all day,
though that didn’t stop me from thinking a lot about what I’d sensed so
strongly from Michael. I can’t keep
anything like that from Mom, but she waited until after dinner to have a little
girl chat with Ehlana and me while Dad and Ethan had some ‘guy time’. My biggest problem with this boils down to
the fact that I don’t want to hurt Michael, and have no idea how I’m going to
keep from doing that when I’m not interested in him – or any other boys – the
way he’s interested in me. Mom had some
suggestions that might help, but she didn’t exactly have any pre-teen romance
issues to deal with when she was growing up; and I’m really not sure that
anything I do, short of crossing over, will make any difference.
No, I’m not going to make that jump for anyone until I’m
ready for it – which I am not.
I wasn’t ready to talk about this with Rowen, but then she had
other news for me when we had a little computer chat a little while ago after
she got home from spending the evening with her family. Michael was having his birthday party at
home, but had dinner with his friends at the Inn. The big news that Rowen witnessed first-hand
while at the Inn with her parents, grandparents, and brother was that Vanessa just happened to be there for dinner with Nora and two of their friends too; and
she rather publicly delivered a birthday gift, hug, and kiss to Michael while she
was there. Apparently most of the girls
thought that was adorable, while Rowen was sure that Michael was not happy
about it at all – especially when his buddies all started razzing him, and
Miranda teased him about being crushed that he didn’t need birthday kisses from
his Mommy anymore.
Considering all of the teasing I’ve been getting from Aunt
Leanne over the past few months, I can definitely relate and commiserate. Rowen told me that Vanessa looked very happy
with the results of her little birthday surprise, which must either mean that
my perspective on this type of thing is completely warped; or she doesn’t know
Michael as well as she thinks she does.
While we’re on that line of thought, I know that cologne and after-shave
are popular gifts for girls to give guys, but I can’t help but think that
nothing says I love you more than a present that strongly suggests that you don’t
smell particularly good; and need to do something about it.
Yeah, I know, but even if part of that sentiment is because
I haven’t crossed over yet, I really don’t expect to change my opinion on the
subject. It’s one thing to help someone
with perfume or cologne choices, but something else entirely to choose how you
think they should smell.
I’ve had enough of that for today, so let’s move along.
As I mentioned, we spent most of the day doing yard and
house work. Mom and Alicia did most of
the work in the house while Dad and I were busy outside. We haven’t needed to deal with cleaning up
leaves much yet, but there was still a lot of work to be done with the gardens;
we washed the van and truck; did a bit of minor repair work on the dock; and
took care of the rest of the usual chores.
We only stopped for lunch and a couple of short breaks until finishing
up at around four o’clock, and then I had time for a long, hot shower before
helping Mom with making dinner.
The girl chat time was followed by a short Magi lesson that
Dad and Ethan joined us for, and then we watched a movie together before going
to bed. I’ve been working on my computer
since then, mostly trying to keep busy and tire myself out. The chat with Rowen didn’t exactly help
settle me down, and neither did my language studies. Go figure, but the book I picked to read had
a sweet teen romance tucked into what was otherwise a fairly decent
mystery. My Portuguese writing practice
was a book report that I thought was pretty good despite a little side-trip
discussing the inundation of sex and romance that seems to be unavoidable and
everywhere.
Don’t believe me? Mom
and Dad are not currently playing board games in their room. Yet another reason for me to keep distracted
with anything else!
Writing about all of this isn’t really helping either, so
I’m going to wrap this up and move on to something mind-numbing – like random
YouTube videos. Maybe that’ll work.
Say ‘goodnight, Cassie’.
“Goodnight, Cassie.”
