I spent the day with my niece and nephew, 9 and 5 respectively. Great kids but ye GODS I'm tired now. They are at the "Aunt Diana, she/he's touching me!" stage and it has cured me of any lingering thoughts of possibly wanting to have children. My biological clock--on which I've already hit the snooze button several times--is now officially off. I enjoy spending time with the kids, but I do not think I could handle having them full time.

It didn't help that our original plans were tabled due to rain all morning long. So instead we went over to my Mom's house and made cookies, then when the rain finally did let up we went out for a short drive and let them run around in a park for a bit. We went to lunch next, whereupon I discovered the joy of trying to get a 5-year old to actually eat his lunch. They were restless and slightly cranky then, and since the sun was out by this time we took them to another park and I proceeded to attempt to run off some of their energy by playing tag and giving piggy-back rides and "flying" them. It calmed them down somewhat, but it also ran off a great deal of my energy. After that we took them to see Harry Potter for what was about the fourth time for each of them--but that is the movie they insisted they wanted to see. Fine. I got to sit. I didn't care. At long last the movie was over and I was able to return the kids to their mother.

One interesting side note: My niece was talking about the christmas party they had and the christmas dinner they had and talked about all the people who were there (basically all of my brother-in-law's family as well as a number of my sister's friends.) She then asked me why my mom and I had not come to the party. "We weren't invited," I said simply. And the more I think about it, the more I think that it was not mean or unfair for me to have said that. It's true. I wasn't invited. I also listened with interest when my niece spoke of the DVD player that my sister gave to one of her neighbors. I cannot remember the last time my sister gave me a gift for either Christmas or my birthday.

Ya just gotta love family.