a little bit of insight...

So... I thought it was about time some of you actually understood this properly.

Those people who talk to me often enough will have heard, at some stage, at least a mention of how much I want kids. Not right now obviously. But in the future. You may have heard me mention some names that I like, or alternately hate. Or names that I'm considering. Or debating the advantages of having just two children.

Although I suppose I've always wanted four.

And when I say always... Well, I've always wanted kids. ALWAYS.

***

I was seven.

Even back then I had difficulty sleeping at night. I would lay awake in bed for what felt like forever! Although I suppose that it was probably only an hour or so. It was probably only 7.30, 8 o'clock.

I used to wear this nightgown to bed. One that my favourite aunt had given me. It was white, and had pink stitching and was pink around the neck, and where the sleeves ended just past my wrists. On the front there was a picture of Ariel, Sebastion and Flounder (from Disney's Little Mermaid if you didn't know that already). I used to love it.

At this stage, I was aspiring to be just like Elyse. A family friend whom I still look up to, and think of as a role model even though she's now twenty and I'm almost seventeen. And Elyse has this stuffed toy collection.

I loved her stuffed toy collection. She had so many. And me, of course, in my seven year old ways... I wanted to be just like her. I couldn't work out how to turn my hair red, or to look as pretty as her (poor little seven year olds, so deprived of the use of hair dye and make up). So I had to settle with the next best thing. A stuffed toy collection.

And I started to get a pretty big one also.

Even at seven I wanted to be a mother. Me and my older cousin Sheree used to spend hours planning our lives, and the lives of our siblings. There are seven of us all together. She had always wanted five children, just as I, even at seven, wanted four. We had planned the names and genders of our children. We had planned our siblings children. Names and genders. I know Sheree still remembers her entire list of possible names, while there are only two on the possible list that I still remember and like.

So there's me. A seven year old, who really wants to have children one day, who cannot sleep, with a massive collection of stuffed toys.

I used to play all sorts of games with my toys during those few hours every night, between when I was sent to bed, and when me parents went to bed and the house grew dark and quiet and I could finally sleep.

Sometimes, and now that I start I'm a little embarrassed to even be telling these stories, I would stuff as many toys under my nightgown as I could and walk around my room pretending to be pregnant. I would then have the 'babies' which would just miraculously appear out of my nightgown regardless of whether it was possible to have twenty seven babies at one time or not (that was the most I ever managed to 'give birth to' lol).

I would play games where they started as babies and grew up. Where I would spend ages going through the different years of their life. They would come and talk to me about school and problems and boyfriends and girlfriends and class mates and any other problems they had. Because I was their mother, and I loved them. Even though they were only stuffed toys...

And then some other times the game would be that two of them were getting married. I suppose that would be around about when I started planning and thinking about my own wedding as well. But these games were quite complex.

I don't even know how to explain it.

It makes me sound really pathetic I'm sure. And I really am somewhat embarrassed to even be writing this in the first place. I wasn't going to tell anyone about this lol... But I think there are a few people who maybe need to understand a few things about me, and the way I think. So yeah...

I've always wanted kids. I've had ideas about my wedding for a very long time. And while I'm not saying they're set in stone, I am saying that I know what I want. I know what I have wanted since I was just a little girl.

So I hope that clears some stuff up for a few of you. And if you haven't been talking to me about this in the past while... Well, enjoy laughing at my patheticness :P