Party, Party, Party

In three days my baby turns 1! I can't believe it! Has it really been that long? It seems like only yesterday I was finding out I was pregnant! Where did this year go?

Reed wants to throw Alexis a party and invite all the kids that we know but I would rather just have a small party with our family, if we have to have a party that is. We don't know that many kids, besides the ones that are all in the day care with Alexis. I don't want to invite people's kids that we don't know, I told him that I wasn't about to put Alexis through that. When he seemed to want to debate that, I mentioned all the party 'friends' that he had over the years.

"Ok fine," he sighed. "We'll just have a small thing here at the house with our family." There was something in his tone that made me feel selfish for not wanting to subject Alexis to those kinds of parties.

"Well, if you want to have kids over," I started but I couldn't finish the thought. Sighing, I told him I was sorry.

"Amber," Reed came over to me and wrapped his arms around me. "I don't want this to be an issue with us, I just want Alexis to have fun. I thought it would be cool to have some kids around for her to play with."

I understood his point, as it stands right now, Alexis is the only kid in our group. I did want her to play with other kids but I didn't want to end up inviting people that she really didn't know or play with.

So in the end, we made up a tiny guest list, there were only five kids on that list. "They are the ones she always plays with at the day care," I told Reed when he asked about them. "I'll talk to their parents when they come in."

Despite it being short notice, I asked them all on Friday when they were picking up their kids, all of the parents said that they would love to have their kids join Alexis' party on Saturday.

When I told Reed about that last Friday, he was excited, he started to go on and on about all the different games and activities that the kids could do. I couldn't help but feel his excitement, I started to get into the party planning mood! But I had to stop him when he started talking about clowns and animals.

"Reed, honey, Alexis doesn't like clowns and do we really want animal poo all over our yard?"

"I didn't know she didn't like clowns," he told me and then asked why not.

"Well," I groaned, I didn't want to tell him why, to this day I feel so guilty about what happened. "When she was five months old I took her to get her photos done (I had her photos done every month for some silly reason). One of the poses the photographer wanted to do involved Alexis sitting in a 'toy box'. The background was cute, it had lots of balloons and toys on it and they had some blocks, dolls and a jack in the box scattered around her. I'm not sure why it happened but right in the middle of shooting that picture, the Jack in the box suddenly sprung up and managed to topple over onto Alexis! She screamed bloody murder, I tried to calm her down but it took a while. Finally she was calm again so we set up to take that photo but the moment she saw the toy she freaked again. We ended up having to take the box and hide it before we could finish the shoot." I glanced up at Reed and he looked like he was trying not to laugh. "It's not funny!" I told him. "To this day if she sees a clown, she screams!"

"Sorry," he tried to stop laughing. "It just seems so unlikely! But I'm not about to find out first hand." He paused and then said, "No clowns."

****

We decided that we would have a little 'party' of our own tonight, a dinner party. Actually more like just having friends over for dinner. It started out with Reed inviting Devon and Janie over for supper, I didn't know he invited them, I happened to run into Chris and Kelly on Saturday and asked them over for supper. When I got home and told Reed, he seemed a little upset that I would invite them over.

I told him that Chris was my friend and I wanted to hang out with him.

"Friend?" Reed scoffed. "Yeah right!"

"He is!" I snapped at him. "I know you don't like him because I went out with him a couple times but honey come on! He's seeing Kelly now and they seem really happy together. I want to get to know her better, she seems so much happy with Chris than she was when she was with Devon."

"Don't you see how bad this could be?" He asked me. "You used to date Chris, I don't really trust him. Kelly used to be engaged to Devon, Janie isn't going to be happy to see her here! Not to mention the face that Devon is so weird whenever Kelly's name is mentioned! He's not going to like having either one of them here!"

"Well..." I shrugged. "What do you want me to do? Call them up and be like, I'm so sorry it seems that you have to be outcasts because people can't be happy that they are with the person they want to be with?"

Reed glared at me. "I'm happy with you," he said slowly. "I just don't see why you want to hang out with Chris when he..." Reed lowered his voice. "He left bruises on you Amber, do you really blame me for not liking him?"

"It was one time," I told him. "And he never touched me like that before or after either! I'm not going to hold that moment against him when he's apologized for it!"

"But what about if he's doing it to Kelly? Have you thought about that?"

"Yes!" I exclaimed. "Yes, I've thought about it! Why do you think I want to get to know her? She doesn't know anyone in town besides us and Devon. If that moment with me wasn't the only time Chris has left bruises on someone, then don't you think it would be a good idea if Kelly knew she could always count on us to be there for her?"

Reed stared at me, he didn't say anything.

"Honey come on, please?" I pleaded with him. "I want things to be ok, I want us to be able to hang out with Devon and Janie as well as Chris and Kelly!"

He still didn't say anything.

"Ok fine! Then I'm not sure I want Devon around."

That got a reaction from him. "What?"

"Well Devon tried to break us up, he lied to you about me when I told you about Alexis, he convinced Janie to delete your emails, he -"

"Ok stop it!" Reed snapped. "Devon is my best friend! Everything he's done, while it wasn't right, he's apologized for and it's in the past; I think we have worked pass that."

"Oh?" I raised a brow. "If that's the case then you should be way pass the one mistake that Chris made."

He was silent again, his jaw was clenched in anger.

"I mean, if you can forgive Devon for trying to ruin us, you can over look Chris' error in judgement that one time."

"Ok," Reed said finally. "I'll let Chris have a fresh start, if you stop holding Devon's actions against him."

"Done," I agreed right away.

So we ended up calling all of our friends and told them that the others would be there, surprisingly enough, no one seemed to mind at all.

I asked Reed last night if he was still upset about the dinner thing and he told me he wasn't. "I think it'll be a good thing," he admitted. "I've been jealous of Chris since the day I met him, I think it's time I let that do, you are with me and that's all that matters."

I smiled, "I love you so much Reed. I'm so glad that you never gave up on us."

Reed got lucky last night, I decided to 'show' him how much I loved him as well as tell him.

****

This morning as he got ready for work, Reed asked me if I would mind if he invited Sean. "It's strange," he told me. "I always wanted a brother and now I do! I keep thinking that we'll make up for lost time but I'm not so sure that's what he wants."

"Of course that's what he wants Reed."

"It's just that he has had such a different life than I have, I don't know if he thinks I'm lame or what."

"Reed!" I shook my head. "Sean doesn't think you are lame! You heard him the other night, he's glad that he has a brother."

"Yeah but..."

"No buts," I told him. "You and Sean have a lot of stuff to catch up on and when you do, you two will be as close as any brothers can be."

"Thanks darling," he pulled me into his arms, kissed me and asked if we could play hooky and crawl back into bed.

I was all for it but he ended up going to work. "Sean is hanging out in the office today," he told me on his way out. "I don't want to miss it."

****

Madeline called me on Saturday and asked me to meet her for lunch today. Normally I don't take my 'lunch' break but when Madeline calls, you don't say no. I just have to clear it with work when I go in, even if they don't have a problem with it, I want to make sure they know that I'm going.

Well, I guess that's about all that's going on right now.