Happy 2nd Anniversary, Uncle Adam and Aunt
Leanne!
The matchmaking conspiracy continued today, thanks to some
help from various junior and senior members of Aunt Leanne’s little team.
Most of that happened during the anniversary party; but not
all of it. During our lunchtime music
practice, Rowen disappeared for an extended washroom break that left Michael
and I alone for twenty minutes or so; and the grins and look in her eyes was
all I needed to see to know that my best friend had been more interested in
junior matchmaking than music. She was
probably just warming up for the party.
I wasn’t taking another Tuesday off from work to play this
week – this time it was all about being drafted to help Mom, Dad, Grandma, and
Grandpa with the party set-up and cooking.
Rowen skipped work to help out too, and after getting our homework done;
our first job was setting up tables and chairs in the back yard. Though it had been cool this morning, we
ended up with a cloudy but fairly nice day; and Mom had made the outdoor dining
decision sometime after I’d left for school.
That worked for me, because if the weather hadn’t cooperated, the indoor
dining plan had included having most of the kids at the kitchen table while the
adults and teens were in the dining room.
Now that I think about it, indoors might have been better;
though we did at least get to be in on more of the actual anniversary action
with everyone outdoors than we would have if we’d been in a different room from
the main party. I say that because the
next major matchmaking set-up put me at ‘the boys’ kid table so I could help
Michael and Patrick with Ethan, Aiden, and Brandon Green during dinner while
Rebecca and Rowen sat at ‘the girls’ kid table with Ehlana and Naomi. Aunt Leanne seemed to be especially happy –
and suspiciously innocent – when Michael and I ended up sitting next to each
other. He helped Aiden; I had the
toughest job with one-year old Brandon; and Patrick spent more time trying to
impress the rest of us with his jokes and gags than he did helping Ethan out
with eating his meal. At least the three
younger boys aren’t quite ready to attempt his repertoire of food and
drink-related tricks and feats.
Mom and Dad had invited quite a few friends, so dinnertime
was a blast of fun even with the not-so-subtle and ongoing matchmaking games
directed my way. I’ve skipped over the
grilling action that Dad and Grandpa had lots of guy support for and the
pre-dinner fun mostly because there was too much going on to write about
everything; and when Rowen and I weren’t helping with the work, we were trying
to keep all of the toddlers entertained.
Michael and Rebecca helped us with that when they came over with their
parents, Jake, and Stephanie; and that’s pretty much all the four of us did
from that point of the afternoon until after the rest of the party guests – and
Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne – went home for the night.
That got us out of the post-dinner clean-up, but even with
all of the fun we had, it was probably more work for us to keep up with five
toddlers. After finishing a fairly messy
cake and ice cream dessert; watching Aunt Leanne do most of the work opening
their anniversary gifts; and getting some parental help with the kid cleaning;
we – the kids – headed over to the park to play. The adults were busy with cleaning up; taking
care of babies; or keeping the guests of honor entertained while we were
away. I’m sure Aunt Leanne would have
been entertained if she’d been at the park to watch her little junior matchmakers
at work while we were there. I won’t
bore you with every detail, but one example would be when Rowen had me ‘take my
turn’ on the swings, and then almost immediately had Michael take over pushing
me while she needed to go do something with Ehlana and Naomi.
I’ll concede that my reaction to Michael’s hands on my lower
back while pushing me is absolutely nothing like when Dad and Grandpa used to
push me during their little contests, but the butterflies are strictly from the
swing motion; and I am not crossing over!
The work around the house was mostly finished by the time we
returned, but the party meandered on, so after a little visit with everyone in
the back yard, we came up to the lounge and my room to continue entertaining
the five younger kids. Most of that time
was split between some music fun and video gaming action, and I might as well
have been holding Michael’s hand while we played; since Rowen, Ethan, and
Ehlana conspired to keep the two of us close together with everything we did –
especially while I played my keyboard and when we were sitting on the sofa
playing video games. How obvious were
they? Obvious enough that I caught
Rebecca trying to hide grins and laughs at least a half-dozen times; and at
least that many scowls and hooded glares from Patrick.
The second-to-last matchmaking attempt moment came when the
parents were gathering their kids to head home, and Michael was drafted to help
me out with the clean-up in the lounge while Rebecca, Rowen, and Patrick went
downstairs with Liz, Hannah, and the five toddlers. There were way too many grinning girls when
they left the lounge, and though we joked about it, I do know that Michael is
quite happy to have Aunt Leanne and her co-conspirators continue to set us up
like this. The fact that he was grinning
too when we rejoined the rest of our families downstairs just gave Aunt Leanne
another excuse to tease us, but I can assure you that nothing even remotely
romantic happened while we were on our own.
You can likely guess that the last tweeird moment of the
night was the goodbye hugs and kisses. I
felt like I was under a microscope when it was time to say goodbye to Michael
and his family, and though I’m sure that it will come back to haunt me
regularly; I attempted a one-up joke on Aunt Leanne when she teased me about
hugging and kissing Michael goodnight too.
Telling her that I didn’t need to do that because I was keeping him for
a sleepover; taking his hand; and tugging him as if leading him toward the
stairs earned the laughs I expected, but I should know better than to try and
out-duel my aunt when it comes to things like that. It’s a really good thing that Dad was there
with his parental veto when Aunt Leanne and Miranda started talking about getting
an overnight bag packed for Michael and Stephanie volunteered to drop it off
for him on her way home.
Michael had been blushing through most of that, and since it
was my fault, I did hug and kiss him goodnight to try and at least make up for
that a little bit – by then there wasn’t much else Aunt Leanne or anyone else
could throw at us anyway.
Once we were on our own, Dad needed to get some work done in
the office, so I helped Mom with getting Ethan and Ehlana ready for bed and
tucked in for the night before coming up to my room again. I needed some Jacuzzi time by then, but
multi-tasked doing that with my studying.
The party hadn’t ended until ten-thirty, so it was after eleven by the
time I slid into the tub; after midnight when I climbed into bed with Mandy;
and going on two when I finished the studying and started going through my
email and nightly news, sports, and entertainment checks.
As I’ve been winding down and getting ready for another
nap-sleep, I’ve been thinking a lot about everything that’s happened
today. It’s more than a little scary to
discover how many of those thoughts focus on the time I spent with
Michael. I’ll put most of the blame for
that on my unwanted, persistent matchmakers, though what was really scariest
was my own reaction to that sleepover joke.
It wasn’t horror-movie terrifying, but the fact that I didn’t find the
idea of having a sleepover with Michael scary is seriously tweeird-zone scary.
I’m definitely going to need to not think about soft, fluffy
bunnies tonight, and should get to that right away, so...
...until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor;
logging out!
