About a week ago I informed Roomie that I would be taking her on a date. I told her to keep this past Saturday night open even though, hello, who else would she be with since I won’t leave her side until Wee Little Fetus arrives?

We got dressed up and it pains me to admit that Roomie looked far better than I did. I’m sorry, but it just isn’t right for a 8.5 month pregnant woman to look hotter than an, um, non-pregnant woman. It’s just wrong, ya’ll / y’all.

(Still haven’t made up my mind yet.)

(GIVE ME TIME, YA’LL / Y’ALL.)

We began date night with a trip to the local Sonic (FANCY, NO?) for a couple of slushes (grape for me, watermelon for Roomie). We needed some kind of fuel for part one of date night and slush just screams protein, you know.

We drove to the Babies ‘R Us store in Chattanooga, which was a pretty big move on my part considering how emotionally traumatizing my last trip there turned out to be. We had Important Things To Do, however. We had made a list of everything left that we needed for Wee Little Fetus and were determined to get everything bought, washed and put away this weekend thanks to some lovely gift cards we received.

After spending way too much time looking at crib sheets, we headed to dinner at our favorite restaurant, Texas Roadhouse. Sure, we’re not from Texas and haven’t even really spent that much time there, but we do love their Roadhouse. We did not love it, however, when the waitresses suddenly broke out into a choreographed dance, but mainly just ’cause we didn’t know the dance ourselves making it difficult for us to join in.

Oh, I kid. I don’t dance in public unless there are sequins involved.

After dinner, I asked Roomie if we could run in Hobby Lobby (not the same one from last week, by the way). After a few minutes of looking through baby room decor, I informed Roomie that I had to go to the bathroom — like, right then.

Off I went, through that gigantic store, until I finally found the bathroom. By this point, I had to go to the bathroom so I was walking rather quickly. I threw open the door to the bathroom, smiled at the teenage boy standing at the sink, and found myself a stall.

And that’s when I realized that there was a teenage boy in the women’s restroom.

And then, five seconds later, I realized that the urinals I had passed on the way in may have indicated that I was in the men’s restroom.

And then, about eight seconds later, I opened the stall door in shame and walked out of the men’s restroom while trying to avoid locking eyes with said teenage boy at the sink.

And yes, Roomie laughed. Quite a bit.

Especially when I did it again at Target the following day.

She can’t sleep. Her hips hurt. Her back aches. She’s very hungry, very often. Sometimes gets sick in the night.

Are we getting close to something happening?

And, while you’re here, what happened right before you went into labor?

I was cleaning out an old filing drawer over the weekend at the office when I came across a handful of letters that our girls had written to us at the end of last year’s program. It was just like Christmas morning for me since, as you may remember, words are my receiving love language.

Okay, you got me. It’s actually still physical touch but? HELLO? “Words of affirmation” just sounds so much better, ya’ll.

Anyway, back to the letter. It’s from a girl who was in 6th grade at the time she wrote it. Which may, now that I think about it, be obvious from the letter:

“Miss Kristen is so awesome. She’s really nice. When twelve things are happening at once in Sparkle, she is still calm and kool. Even though she doesn’t like the cheese, she is still the best Sparkle leader ever in my opinion.”

Good to know that those of us who have a PNC aversion are still loved by the middle school masses.

P.S. – Want to hear another letter that, somehow, doesn’t mention PNC?

“I used to feel like a caterpillar but now I feel like I’ve hatched out of my cocoon and I’m a butterfly. Sparkle has changed my whole life.”

Well then. Maybe words of affirmation really will become my new love language.

So, I’m currently writing this from Roomie’s bed where we have decided to do a combo post for you featuring both of us. I would like you to know that, as I type each of these words, I am actually saying them out loud to Roomie in my best Australian voice (I actually do this a lot around her, mainly ’cause it makes her laugh). She is laying beside me making fun of me and threatening to hurt me because I’m making fun of her pregnancy jeans right now (I’M SORRY, BUT REALLY? REALLY?).

Hi, it’s Roomie now. I would like to tell Heidi Murkoff, author of What To Expect When You’re Expecting, all of her little puns and “jokes” are not funny to this pregnant person. How on earth have you sold over 14 million copies. with lines like “Sure, you’re the size of a small hippo…” (page 350, in case you’d like to verify).

AB here now… for the record, Roomie is not the size of even a very small hippo.

Roomie here again. Dearest blog readers: what are your thoughts on the backpack purse? AB, earlier this evening in TJMaxx, said “Hey, is the backpack purse coming back?” I bit my tounge, showing my disgust for the backpack purse while AB continued to look at it. Moments later, we saw a bra-less woman running across the parking lot while wearing a backpack purse. Your thoughts, readers?

IN MY DEFENSE, I was all about the backpack purses back in 3rd grade. And yes, that woman did need a certain undergarment more than she needed that backpack purse.

AB, the backpack purse is over.

Whatev’.

Well, Roomie made it home last night. She’s been gone for two weeks as she’s been trying To Handle Some Details Pertaining To Her Situation That I Cannot Discuss On A Hot Pink Bloggy. I have missed her and that fetus more than I ever knew was possible. When she pulled up to the house last night, I actually fell over a dining room chair trying to get to the door before she could even get out of her car.

It didn’t happen. Turns out that A. she is quite fast and, B. I am not so fast when I’m tripping over things.

The hugging commenced upon her arrival into the living room at which point I began saying “You’re not in labor, right?” at five minute intervals for the rest of the evening.

Just trying to stay on top of stuff, y’all.

Also. It has come to my attention that I have been writing “ya’ll” and it should be “y’all.” At least according to some of you. And then there are others who say it should be ya’ll. I am going to use them both, decide which one I like best AND THEN CREATE NEW GRAMMAR RULES BASED ON MY FEELINGS.

Back to my story: so, Roomie was starving, I was getting there and Cousin Cate was just along for the ride. We headed to Zaxby’s — Roomie’s place ‘o craving for the last 6 years — and had some chicken. We ran into my college pastor, Hugh, who overfilled his drink causing it to spill all over the counter which brought more delight to us than you can imagine. There’s just something about seeing your pastor wiping up sweet tea that makes you want to get up and help him clean it up sit in your booth and laugh.

When dinner was finished, I surprised Roomie with a small gift card to Hobby Lobby. It was a welcome home gift that I knew she’d want to spend right away because she has really been wanting a scrapbook for the baby. So, off we went to that lovely store otherwise known as The Place Where Amy Beth Opened Her Mouth And Inserted Her Foot and Entire Leg.

We had found a couple of things for the Baby’s room that Roomie really liked and, despite her protests, I threw them in the cart (one thing you should know about Roomie is that she has a hard time accepting gifts, blessings, etc.). The things we found were exactly what we’ve been looking for over the last several months, so I couldn’t just leave them on the shelf.

When we got to the cash register, Roomie stood with her back to the register, continually saying “I can’t even look to see how much this is, I can’t even do it… don’t say the total out loud.” It wasn’t even a lot of stuff, just in case you were wondering, but Roomie couldn’t handle it.

And that’s when The Incident went down.

I decided to tease Roomie and so I said “Oh, look at Cate’s face as she watches the total!” at which point Cate would pretend to gasp. And then, wanting to include our clerk who had… um… a very unique appearance, I decided to say “Oh, you should see Phyllis’ face right now as she’s ringing all this up!”

Except that came out as: “Oh, Phyllis looks really weird!”

And then, there was a silence that seemed to go on for eternity as I tried to figure out the best way to fix this mess. I began profusely apologizing to Phyllis (not her real name, by the way) while Roomie and Cousin Cate literally began laughing so hard that they were bent over right there in checkout lane 2.

I’m relieved to report that Phyllis seemed rather unfazed by the whole “You are weird” comment I had just bestowed upon her, though I did notice we did not get our 50% off a certain picture frame.

It was, however, worth it just to hear Roomie and Cousin Cate yell out “Phyllis looks WEIRD!” from the couch for the rest of the night.

I neglected to mention that one of my tasks in taking care of Chandler involved putting together her lunch for school today.

Now, I believe we all are aware of what a great cook I am, so it shouldn’t surprise you that I whipped something fabulous up for Miss Chandler (who is seriously one of THE cutest kids I have ever met!).

I began by placing a small bag of Goldfish in her lunch box; I had, obviously, ground the wheat myself and formed their little fishy-faces in the wee hours of the morning. Then, I placed a couple of cookies in the bag — ones I made from scratch, but of course (I just put them in the Chips Ahoy bag ahead of time so Chandler wouldn’t be intimidated by my incredible baking skills). Next, I took some apples and drained the juice from them to make homemade apple juice which I conveniently packaged in a Mott’s Apple Juice Box with a little bend-y straw (again, didn’t want to intimidate Chandler).

And then there was the sandwich. I couldn’t send my old faithful (peanut butter) because her school doesn’t allow them to have it, so her dad had tipped me off to the idea of a grilled cheese sandwich. Easy, right?

Especially when you ask your waiter at Cracker Barrel to bring you a kid’s grilled cheese to go as you leave the restaurant the night before.

One of my real-life (and blog) friends had to have some unexpected surgery yesterday, so her five year old daughter ended up staying with me last night.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: no big deal, right? You run a ministry for little girls, for crying out loud.

Um, yes. That would be true. But a little girl? In my own care? IT IS DIFFERENT.

I picked Chandler up from kindergarten at 2:30 and, after a quick stop at McDonald’s, took her back to the Starlite office with me where she proceeded to color for the next hour while I blazed through my email. I had a meeting that I couldn’t miss, but never fear: our high school intern, Lauren, took over Chandler-watching duties while I met with President Bush to work on solving the nation’s budget crisis tried to figure out our lock-in schedule for the coming year.

We were able to sneak out of the office a few minutes before the end of the day, mainly because we have An Incredible Night Volunteer Team That I Love Because It Means I Get To Leave Before 9 p.m. At Least One Night A Week.

I’m sorry, but they definitely deserve caps. And, now that I think of it, cappuccinos, too.

We went home to play with the puppies for a bit and then decided to go back out for dinner seeing as the only food I had in the house (prepare yourself) was Special K, Jello and some green beans. Delicious, especially when combined together, no?

I’ll give you one guess as to where I took the kidlet, but I’m pretty sure you can figure it out on your own as long as you know the words “Cracker” and “Barrel.” It was there at our table in the corner of the room that my little five year old friend threw down the gauntlet:

“Miss Amy Beth, where is your husband?”

“Well, I don’t actually know. I’m not married yet.” Honesty: it’s always the best policy.

“You don’t have a HUSBAND? But you’re OLD!”

“I’m actually not that old, Chandler.”

“You look like you are.”

“Thank you.” Well, maybe it was a compliment.

“Who is your boyfriend?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend anymore.” OH NO. WHY DID I SAY “ANYMORE?”

“What happened? Did he die?”

“No, but we just decided that we wanted to be friends.” Friends that will never talk again, avoid each other in public places, skip the annual Christmas card… you know, friends.

“Did you give him a true love’s kiss? That’s what that girl from Enchanted did.”

“Well, yes, I did give him a true love’s kiss. Several, actually.” I’M SORRY, IT JUST CAME OUT.

“And he doesn’t want to give you a true love’s kiss back?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain, Chandler. But I want him to be happy and find someone else to give more true love’s kisses and he wants me to do the same.”

Silence. And then…

“Well, I hope you find someone to kiss soon cause you are old.”

I’m on it, Chandler.

You’ve been asking a lot lately about Baby, so I figured it is high time we had an update on The Pregnancy That Seems To Be Taking Forever. This post will also probably take forever to read, so I’m going to apologize for that now. If you can suffer through it though, I’d love to have your thoughts on the emotions that are going on right now.

Roomie’s doing well overall. I think that she’s feeling a lot of different emotions, especially as reality creeps closer and closer (the big event will happen sometime in the next four weeks). We haven’t set-up the nursery yet, mainly because we don’t have the crib, changing table, etc. (someone gave her these items to use, but they are in storage in a state far, far away) or anything else to actually decorate with. I’m not sure what we’re going to do about that little issue, but we know that Baby is going to stay in Roomie’s, um, room at first, so we’re okay on waiting, I guess.

I just had this dream that we’d spend hours putting the crib bedding on, placing the lamps just so, etc. It’s hard to walk in that room and see a few boxes on the floor and a handful of outfits in the closet. We don’t go in the nursery very often, if you want to know the truth. It’s, in a way, just another painful reminder that this is hard.

With that said, we have been very blessed to have received lovely gifts not only from a baby shower we had a few weeks ago but also from you all! Roomie and I were just talking the other night about the fact that you all — the people we have never met — have sent more for this Baby than anyone else. You don’t know how much we appreciate it. Seriously. No, really. Seriously.

This Friday, Roomie and I are going to be making a list of everything left that we need and we’ll start attacking it one item at a time, from one weekly paycheck to another. One thing that God has been teaching me (and I suspect He’s teaching it to Roomie, too) is that He is the provider for this baby — not us. I am almost glad that I don’t have the money to run out and finish buying everything on her registry because it forces me to rely on the fact that God will provide what we need — every last piece of it.

Emotionally, we’re doing okay. I can’t really speak for Roomie (but I think she’s going to be writing a post for ya’ll very soon), but I’m just going through the emotions one at a time. And there’s a lot of emotions inside of me.

Sometimes I’m afraid. How will we do this? And here I go, crying as I type. Don’t get me wrong: I would never, ever not want to do this. If Roomie tried to pack up and leave today, I’d pack my bags and go wherever she ran. But as much as I want it, it is very scary at times.

Roomie and I are very different in the way we handle our feelings and emotions. I am pretty transparent, almost to a fault. Roomie is not even close to being transparent, so to see her finally starting to talk about the hurt these last few weeks has been really difficult for me. I have been on my knees begging God to let me carry some of her pain, not just because I want there to be less for her to carry but also because I want to know what she’s feeling. I want to feel it with her, mainly because I want her to know that she’s not alone.

Oh, goodness the tears are out of control right now.

So, that’s where we’re at right now. Any advice?

Once upon a time, a lovely girl named Hannah began volunteering with Starlite. Soon, she was engaged to the love of her life — a guy who was actually also a Starlite volunteer (it’s a long story — but we do have male volunteers for certain aspects of the ministry).

Hannah and her husband welcomed their first baby a few days ago and were sweet enough to have me take some photos for them yesterday afternoon. It was my first time to meet little Kaden and he did not disappoint. He’s only five days old (!), so naturally, he spent more time in my arms than in front of my lens.

I spent the rest of our time together saying things like “Baby. I need a baby. I really, really need a baby. I need a husband first, but baby? I need a baby. I’m sorry, is anyone listening? I NEED A BABY.”

Take one look at this precious little thing and tell me I do not need a baby:

I TOLD YOU SO.

We even got 15 seconds of me gushing over this baby, if you’re so inclined to hear the desperation in my voice:

Oh, and that other noise you hear in the background? No worries. It’s just my ovaries crying out for BABY, I NEED A BABY.

Edited To Add: Yep, that’s an ad you see on the right side of the screen as well as a new, lighter colored background in the middle. A few more changes over the next couple of days, so you’ll have to be patient as we get things situated. I know ya’ll may not like ads, but somebody has got to start buying diapers (not to mention the processed nacho cheese). Plus, you know, volumizing hairspray. Just the necessities in life.

For more WFMW, visit Shannon!

My smallest puppy, Cuddles, almost died the other night all because he stopped breathing.

I was having a dinner party for some close friends when Cuddles began choking on a bone. After several attempts to get the bone out, it became obvious that we needed to get him to the pet hospital as quickly as possible. Our town doesn’t even have a pet hospital, so we were looking at least a 20 minute drive just to get him there. From one dark back road to another we went, with Cate holding my gasping puppy in her lap and me saying “I’ll breathe for him! I will! Cate, tell me if he stops breathing — I’ll breathe for him!” I was frantic and desperate and all those other things that make you willing to give your own breath for something you love, especially if it means they’ll have a chance at surviving.

The strangest thing about the last few weeks of my life has been the regular sensation of having the breath knocked right out of me. When you love someone for so long — and go back and forth, on and off — it creates a familiarity that you don’t even recognize until it is gone forever. And, in my particular situation, it is gone. Forever.

It’s very tricky to love or be loved when there’s other humans involved. I’ve only been in love once — this time, of course — and I took it seriously. We were off and on and off and on and it just went on for years, sometimes publicly and sometimes privately. And when you love someone for so long and end up having to ask them if they love you still and they tell you that no, no they just don’t love you anymore…

Well, it does tend to leave you breathless.

I was standing in line at our TJMaxx on Sunday afternoon, actually thinking about what a good day I was having so far — no tears, no drowning in feelings of abandonment, none of that. By the time it was my turn to lay my return on the counter, I was — dare I say it — almost smiling.

And that’s when the song came on.

It was our song but he never knew it, mainly because it came out while we were on a break from each other and we weren’t back together this last time long enough for me to tell him that, surprise, I had found a song for us. But regardless of his knowledge of it, the song was ours –

“If you just realize what I just realized…”

I was feeling as though all the air had been sucked from the room when I heard a gasp from the girl ringing me up and glanced up in surprise. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “This song just makes me cry sometimes.”

I quietly assured her that I understood and that, believe it or not, I had cried a few tears myself over that very song. Breathe, Amy Beth, breathe.

“Really?” She seemed surprised.

“Yes, of course. It always reminds me of… well, him.” I knew she’d understand what I meant.

Before I could say anything else, she began to weep. I glanced behind me and was relieved to see that no one else was around. But I had no idea what to say to the girl now sobbing behind the counter.

“I’m so sorry!” She was obviously embarrassed, so in an action that comes from years of listening to hundreds of stories of girls’ heartbreak, I reached out my hand to cover hers.

And that’s when she began to gasp.

“But! But he said he loved me! I just don’t understand! I, I just don’t know what to do!” By this time, she was obviously on the verge of a panic attack. I grabbed both her hands, looked her straight in the eyes and began doing the only thing I knew to do.

“Breathe… that’s right… just breathe for a second. Breathe with me.”

We stood there for a long time, her standing next to a long forgotten cash register while I kept reminding her that she needed to take another breath. And another. And another… all until she finally felt like she could breathe on her own again.

And then I finally understood a little more about the nature of the God I have chosen to love.

All these days, all these longs nights spent wondering what the point of having loved was if that love was in vain and vowing that I won’t love again, all of that can come pouring out. I have permission from Him to feel pain, acknowledge it and even feel breathless from it. And when it does, when He sees me absolutely unable to breathe on my own, there He’ll be, pleading before His own father:

“I’ll breathe for her! I will! Father, tell me if she stops breathing — I’ll breathe for her!”

After all, He’s already breathed for me once before.

“And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed out His life.” Mark 15:37

Edited To Add: Hundreds of you all are coming over from a couple of links to this post, so I wanted to say a quick hello! I’m glad you made it here and I hope you’ll feel comfortable around all the pink. I’ve got a lot of exciting things happening right now in life from living with a friend who is expecting a baby and will be raising it with my help to learning that things aren’t always how they look. I learn lessons in the pool and in the doctor’s office, too. And if that isn’t enough for you, well, there’s always a list of 100 things that’ll put you right to sleep.