And...I'll see you guys Friday.

Just so you guys know, I probably won't be back in the Blogosphere until Friday. If you could all promise not to post anything until then, I would love you forever. But I know that my wish is in vain. Which means I will be spending most of Friday trying desperately to catch up on everybody's posts and leave comments.

It's okay.

Am I tell you why I'm going away? No. Padawan and I are just going...away...for a few days.

I'll be back to my bright and bubbly updates after I return, I expect.

It is not a vacation. That's not until June. Or maybe July. Or September. I don't know when our vacation is. We haven't really discussed it.

I'll leave you with a story.

My mother and father desperately wanted a son. My sisters and I are the result of four pregnancies, only three of which were successful. The fourth pregnancy wound up being her last. It ended in a miscarriage that left her unable to have more children. They were stuck with four blond haired daughters and no hope of ever having a son.

Daddy tried to make the best of it. All the things he wanted a son for he tried to do with the four of us. Learning to play baseball was the first thing he tried when the twins were four, I was five, and Relly was six. Let's just say his dreams of putting us on a Little League team turned to ashes in front of him when he realized none of us could pitch, I was too afraid to catch the ball, Relly couldn't swing a bat to save her life, and the Twinkies preferred to try to catch bugs than to actually pay attention to what he was trying to teach us.

When he tried to teach us how to ride bikes he met with better success. The Twinkies and Relly took to it with ease. I was...a disappointment and a failure. Family bike rides would never be possible because I could only go forward in a straight line, and my breaking ability was...not great. However, I could put a slipped bike chain back on with no trouble.

That inspired him to teach us about cars. Relly and I learned basics like changing tires and the difference between the transmission and the engine but the Twinkies refused to go into the garage to learn anything because it smelled bad and "cars are dirty." 

Then he moved his attention to building an Olympic Swim Team. (Yes. That was seriously his goal.) It broke his heart that none of his daughters were strong swimmers. We were slow, awkward, and complained of being too cold within an hour of getting into the water, no matter how hot it was on those Florida days. But he moved from Swim Team to Diving Team.

Huge problem.

1. I was afraid of heights and refused to jump off of even the low dive board.
2. Relly would jump off of the high dive, but she wouldn't do it head first in a dive.
3. The Twinkies would not consider jumping head first off of anything. 

Next Daddy tried basketball, though it was becoming very clear that none of his beautiful children were athletically inclined. Amazingly, though, all four of us took to basketball with surprising ease. We found it interesting, fun, and despite our height challenges (we were all small and undersized for our ages) we played well.

That was that. Daddy was going to train us to be in the WNBA. We would play in middle school, high school, and get full ride scholarships to whatever colleges we wanted because we would be that awesome. It had taken him five years, but he had finally found something he could do with his daughters that he would have done with sons. 

The only obstacles to his dreams were our weekly asthma attacks in which one or all four of us would be rushed to the hospital for breathing treatments, which were held in what I would always call "The Metal Room." (For years I thought The Metal Room was a dream, a horrible nightmare created by my young mind in my childhood. It wasn't until recently that I asked my mother about it, and she explained that The Metal Room had been a real place, and that I had always fought the doctors when they tried to put the ugly green mask on my face.)

To Daddy's excitement, though, the four of us grew out of our asthma, and I really think he would have kept going with it if he and Mom hadn't started having really awful marital issues. When he finally left and we didn't follow, Mom sent us to Texas with Memaw and Papaw, and only the Twinkies stuck with basketball. I migrated towards track in middle school. Somehow I had inherited Daddy's running ability, but that was a short lived glory. My heart problems will forever bar me from any sports. Relly played volleyball for a while, then tried cheerleading, (we'd both done peewee cheerleading for Mom's sake when we were five and six, but it hadn't stuck because I hated standing outside in the hot sun cheering them to GO! FIGHT! WIN! Beat to the win! WHOO!) and finally settled on Band and gave up Athletics altogether. 

Brat and Wheat stuck with Basketball through the end of their Freshman year of high school before giving it up because, let's face it, it was really hard to be an Emo Kid and a sporty blond. Also, the other girls on the team were pretty bitchy and kind of stupid. 

Daddy was disappointed that we all left the world of sports, but he was mollified when Relly and I took an interest in music, which was something we could share with him. Wheat and I also showed a talent for drawing and water colors, which we also got from him. Brat...well, she didn't really stick with anything. No interest in music, art, or sports she was his biggest let down until Wheat eloped and married a man Daddy hates. 

I think over the years he got over not having any sons. If it had been that important to him he would not have remarried a woman who had three daughters and was also incapable of having children. I think he's pretty satisfied.