The one with all the accidents...

So this morning, the Bear looks directly at her father and says, "hi dada." How sweet is that?! And then I pick her up, and she looks me right in the eye and says, "hi dada." ::bangs head on table in frustration::

Anyway, I mentioned earlier that my life is a series of accidents, and I thought, hey, perhaps I should explain about all these "accidents." Does this lady crash her car all the time? Does she wet her pants? No...

A brief run-down of the "accidents" I've encountered in the last five years, which have pretty much managed to define my life:

Accident The First: Wherein I run into the ex.

So I'm in college, having fun, doing the whole college thing (read: drink, screw, smoke, write term paper, lather, rinse, repeat) and I meet this guy. And he's cool. And he's popular. (Soooo hot! Want to touch the heinie...) And he's just fantastically unique and different, and I'm smitten. We date. This does not work out, and I am dumped. I am, also, heartbroken. ::damn him::

I move on, meet and date other guys. I meet The One. He is wonderful. Sensitive, caring, modestly attractive, loves me to bits, stable, etc., you name it, he's got it. Poor but hardworking, honest, punctual, thrifty, in touch with his emotions... he was The One. So we talk, we date, we get engaged. We set a date, we make plans... At this point in time I'm still living with the roommates, doing my single thing. One night, we go to a party. Wasn't really planning to go, but I got suckered in by the friends. I'm at the party, talking (loudly, to be heard over the music), playing games (don't get me started on the drinking games we used to play in college), and generally having a boring evening. Enter... my ex-boyfriend (the only one who ever dumped me).

We stare awkwardly, then he comes over. We talk, and surprisingly have way more in common now than we did at the time of the Great Breakup. He offers me a ride home, and asks if he can call me. He emails me, he calls me, we go out for coffee and french fries, and I am, once again, smitten.

Very long story made very very short: I dump The One (8 months before the wedding) and take up with the unemployed ex-boyfriend.*

Accident The Second: Wherein we procreate.

Fast forward several years, and the ex-boyfriend and I are now married. We have a lovely wedding, and settle in to our new home to live the married life, which in our eyes means lots of sex, hours of deep conversation over glasses of wine, and exciting exploration of our new surroundings (did I mention we moved?).

About two days after the wedding, three things happen. 1) I get very, very sick. This is finally diagnosed as a kidney infection. 2) I cry. All the time. About everything. Loudly, bitterly, and as though my heart will break. 3) I hate my new husband. He is a horrible man, and I want him to #%&$ off and die, and I tell him so frequently. He, on the other hand, thinks we've made a horrible mistake, and can't figure out why I'm so damn unhappy. Neither can I.

Turns out, I'm pregnant. Can I possibly explain in words how very unhappy I was about this? Literally, I was convinced that my life was ruined. Again, there are several reasons. 1) We didn't want a child until our 30s, if ever. That's IF EVER. We weren't set on having one at all. 2) I was on the Pill. What idiot manages to get pregnant while she's on the Pill? 3) I had just finished graduate school, quit my job, gotten married, moved 500 miles away to a place where I knew nobody, and was ready to start a new career - looking for a job. This was Not The Time.

So, more crying (approximately 8 months more crying) and contemplation of Bad Things. I was severely depressed throughout my pregnancy, which was unplanned and, frankly, unwanted. I wanted to die more at that point than I ever had before. But, calmer heads than mine prevailed, thank goodness.

Enter the Bear. She's the cutest damn baby ever, and I don't know what we did without her. (Sleep. That's what we did. I can vaguely remember sleeping.) She's so charming, in fact, that we decide she needs siblings.**

Accident The Third: Wherein Biology fails us.

Since the Bear is such a lovely and easygoing child, we're silly enough to decide to space them relatively close together. We're ready to start "trying" (read: not using any contraception, but not really making a concerted effort) when she's about five months old. That way, they'll only be a year apart, and everything will work out well. And lo and behold, we got pregnant again. The Bear Cubs would be exactly 14 months apart, and would be the best of playmates. And lo, it was good.

Right up until...

Last February, when we lost the baby. It was a very hard time for me, because this second pregnancy was very much wanted, unlike the first. I was devastated. I spent lots of time in bed, just being depressed. Eventually, I got out of bed, but some days I'm still pretty depressed. We'd like to try again for a second one some day, but I'm scared as hell now.

So, somehow things never seem to work out the way I plan them. At this point, P and I have made a plan to stop making plans, because whenever we make them, they invariably go awry. I've decided that from now until eternity, we're just going to fly by the seat of our collective pants. If we have another baby, it will happen when it's ready. If we don't, it just wasn't meant to be. Moving, jobs, etc. all fall under our no-plan plan. Somehow, the accidental things have made life so much richer for me... I'm interested to see what's in store for us next.

Geez, I said this was going to be brief, and it's so... not brief at all. Oh well. I have brevity issues.

*This makes me sound like such a flake, which I am not. This man is compelling in a way that nobody else is. Women fawn over him - men envy him. I have yet to figure out why this is... suffice it to say, he's a man who can play sports, fix things, and write amazingly well, which is not a combination you often find. A brilliant, talented writer, and did I mention soooooo hot?! Also - he fights with me. The One was such a doormat, and he always let me get my way. Which was fun at first, but boring and also slightly unhealthy.

**I am an only child, and my husband is not. After a protracted discussion, we decided that having siblings is better than not having siblings, because otherwise who will pay to put us in the home when we're old?