girlfriends.

Call me crazy.
I have seven 14 year old girls in my living room for a sleepover.

And I'm loving every minute.

I was always awkward with girlfriends growing up.  I always had one or two but couldn't figure out how to really connect and the boys were more interesting to me.  (Big eye roll and sigh on THAT one)  It wasn't until I was a mom of two babies that I started to realize how important girlfriends might be.  And over the next decade, my girlfriends became my sanity and my lifeline.

So you can imagine my delight that my teenage daughters are learning that earlier than I did.  I'm hoping they will continue to hear me that high school is for finding your maid of honor, not your husband.  I hear these girls tonight make the most insanely dumb jokes and giggle over the silliest of things and my heart just swells.

It get's more and more challenging these days to connect with my girlfriends.  Spouses, boyfriends, kids, jobs, life circumstances and distance constantly get in the way of good, solid girl time.  But I know that at any given moment I can call one up and get advice, hear a silly story or vent about a bad day.

Girlfriends really do make the world go round.

Even if at age 14 they keep your mom up all night long.

-McGee

PHEW. I'm back.

What the heck was that?

Sometimes technology gets the best of me.

Took me awhile to figure it out but JustMcgee is fixed and back in action!

Look for more to come this week...I'm feeling opinionated and reflective.  Given that I'm also super pregnant that will probably not bode well for someone but life's too short!

-mcgee

don't know what you've got till it's gone.

Seriously.

My eyes burn from crying tonight.

It wasn't pretty.

You see...I was never what you would call a "dog person" but the boys in our family are, so we were graced with a puppy this year from Good Ole Saint Nick.  And then found out I was pregnant.

A boxer puppy.  And a pregnancy.
Good call, right?

Fast forward nearly four months, plenty of potty training accidents, good days and bad.

It was time to feed Bailey tonight and when Mr. Man went out to get her the back fence was wide open and Bailey was nowhere to be seen.  The horrific primal cry that let out of Little Man was horrific to experience as a mom.  It was all I could do to not come unglued.

The next hour and a half were mixed with lots of tears, many drives around the area and half hearted attempts to calm the boy and reassure him that it was possible Bailey would find her way home while I breathed deeply with big fat tears streaming down my cheeks.  In the midst of the chaos, one of my sisters hundreds of miles away placed a Craigslist missing dog notice and started calling animal shelters.  She beat Mr. Man to finding Bailey by a few minutes.   Best text of the year from my sister "She is at animal control!"

And here we are, hours later and I'm still a mess.  The thought of losing that little pesky part of family is unbearable.  Helping our kiddos get through that loss would have been heartbreaking.

So I guess it's official.
I'm not only a dog owner.
I'm a dog lover.

Through and through.

-McGee