Boy Vs. Girl

That is him then.

This is her now.

She's a holds the nursing pose a little bit longer with her mouth and there's a little bit of difference in their noses and lips, but there is no question these two come from the same place. 

A place called Gorgeoustowncheekaliciousville.

A Baby Story

Monday morning I woke up on the special air mattress-tempur pedic-luxury-bed (one of my dad's specialties, along with pancakes) to a very pregnant Leiah prancing around.

Keep in mind, this same woman has a chair in front of her bathroom mirror so she can sit down to brush her teeth and a stool in front of the pantry so she can take a break while she looks for the macaroni and cheese. That is how pregnant she is.

One week overdue, Leiah had started leaking (just like Venus used to do!!) late Sunday night, but nothing like the gush we were expecting. Monday morning though, there was some gushing... not like TV caliber but definitely real life caliber.

She had a weekly checkup scheduled at 12:50 and wasn't in any pain, so we ate breakfast, got ready, and then went to the appointment. The doctor told us to go to the hospital.

Which we did after we stopped by Jimmy John's to eat lunch, ran by the house to get Leiah's things, dropped Ben off with his Dude, and made a few phone calls. Once you get to the hospital, there's no more eating, and once you get into labor, there's no room for anything else.

Once Leiah was settled in her room, we played Spades, listened to Eminem, and taught my mom some "club" dance moves.

We must have been having too much fun because the nurse came in and said, "Well, if you're up playing cards, then we're not doing our job." The doctor told Leiah that since her water had broken and since her temperature was going up that they wanted her to deliver as soon as possible and hopefully keep the baby from getting an infection. Cue the pitocin.

Also cue Leiah moaning and breathing and doing her best to get through every contraction. Alli did her massage magic on Leiah's back, Mom read poetry about motherhood and delivery out of a book called Tender Hooks, and things got very quiet. Matty G. was kicked out of the room, and then Leiah eeked out her wish for an epidural.

Leiah was like a new woman after the epidural. She could still move her legs a little, and she wasn't in any pain.

My dad stopped by to visit, and when he left, we turned off all the lights and rested. Mom laid down on one of those hospital sleeper chairs, put a sheet over her head and tried to sleep, but I was way too jazzed for this to be over so suddenly. I sat by Leiah and watched her rest. There she was, my little sister, doing grown up things that I'm too afraid to try. I thought about when she was born and I visited her in the hospital, how I knew she was my sister but how little that meant then. She was more like something my mom had to deal with, something not really relevant to my life. Four-year-olds have no idea.

The nurse came in to check her at about 11pm, and she was at 10 cm. The lights came on, an army of medical people rushed in, a mirror was put in place, the bed was dismantled, instructions were given, and pushing was started. Leiah pushed two times and we could see Lilly's head.

Now, up until that moment, I've never seen a baby's head coming out of the love tunnel. I'd seen Heather give birth, but my eyes were locked on her, the anguish in her forehead, the out of body experience she was having. It was so surreal I couldn't look away, so I never saw Cole make his way into the world. This time, I stared into Leiah's lady parts, looked at that baby's head, and just when I was thinking it, Leiah said, "Ohhh, that looks weird."

The baby's head was all shriveled and squished, so much so that it didn't really look like a head. It looked hard and gray, like a giant dried up potato. I don't know why but the word "trachea" popped into my head when I first saw it. Leiah waited for another contraction, pushed two more times, and that suspicious potato became one of the most beautiful human beings alive. Her entire torso was out after those pushes, so the doctor told us to take pictures and told Leiah to reach down and grab her. Lillian left her momma's insides, came to rest on her chest, and has pretty much been there ever since.

Any forgetting day now.

Last Monday was Leiah's due date. And now it's Sunday, and Lillian seems to have no desire to come meet us. Perhaps we should make brownies.

Poor Leiah has been sick as a dog for the last week, alternating between stuffed up and oozing, so maybe Lilly is being good to her momma and letting her recover a bit before going through the trauma of childbirth. And having a newborn. And being sleep deprived. And I'll stop there.

I can't wait for Lilly to get here. I've gone so far as to stimulate Leiah's left breast (the right one is sore) to try to induce labor, something that is probably totally annoying but that Leiah, in her sick and tired state, isn't motivated enough to fend off. Betsy and I tried to invent a have-the-baby dance that involved a lot of awkward squatting, but then company came over and we acted right.

I've been keeping my phone on me (MIRACLE), limiting my beer intake, and making sure I put an asterisk on commitments so I can leave at a moment's notice and go fill my role on the Welcoming Committee whenever I get the call. I've never been with one of my sisters when they've given birth to a baby, and I can't wait to support Leiah and share this overwhelming experience with her.

Also, I love babies.

Snow Day

I spent the day with the cutest boy alive today. We played in the snow, drank hot cocoa with marshmallows and whipped cream, did some fingerpainting, and went swimming. He told me he loved me about 50 times and that my boobs were gross. I knocked him down a lot and fake tried to drown him. We had a blast.

 

 

During our painting session we got to chatting, and out of the blue he said, "I had a boyfriend named God once. He was square with a round head." Turns out God had lots of guns and nets and "he also had the largest gun that could kill good people." Isn't he the best?

One Night Stand

That New Year's Resolution is off to a good start. Or at least an ambitious one.

What happens when you don't pay your bills.

This morningish (we got up around 11) started out like most mornings de winter, with both of us in bed trying to invent reasons we should get out of bed even though it's like 11 degrees out there.

I'm not lazy; it's just cold.

Eventually the responsibilities of social networking got me up and Mack, with no one left to endorse this bad behavior, decided to get on with his day too. I hopped on the computer, he hopped in the shower.

Squeak, bang, creak, squeak, thunk.

"Is the water guy outside?" yells a frantic bathroom voice.

"Wha?" I say as I get up and go to the window to look out. "Yeah."

"Catch him!"

Without thinking, I burst through the front door, down the steps and started yelling after the KAWC truck. "HEY! HEY! HEY! WAIT!!!"

As The Man Who Ruined Today rounded the corner and out of sight, I returned to the moment and realized I'm in public, on a busy street, in semi-transparent blue polka dotted pajama pants, a stretched out grey t-shirt sans bra, and electric pink furry boot slippers that should only be worn by 13 year olds. Aka too sexy.

I went inside to preserve my dignity and explain to Mack that The Man Who Ruined Today got away, and you know that scene in A Christmas Story where the dad's cusses are all mumbles and grrrs? Yeah, that became my life for about 15 minutes.

Since we'd been gone for most of December, the mail had gotten out of control. We went through it when we got home, and I remembered seeing a KAWC bill and putting in on Mack's desk to be paid. There was nothing else from them, just a bill, and it was due Jan. 12. No problem, except that they turn off your water within the month if you don't pay the bill for that month before your next bill is due, a policy that, along with the fact that they don't knock to give you one last chance to pay, qualifies them as Asshole Cuntbag Dickfaces.

I immediately called them to pay the past due bill, the current bill, the $26 Because We Haven't Fucked You Enough Charge and the $1.80 Rape Charge for Paying Over the Phone. With a confirmation number in hand and a promise to have the water back on today in place, the next issue to deal with was Mr. Grumbles.

The Man Who Ruined Today came just after Mack's shower, which was good, but right in the middle of Mack's manscaping, which is oh-so bad. Mack is a hairy gorilla, and because he shaves probably once a month, when he finally does it, it is a project. A project that requires water.

When he opened the door to show me "what I'm dealing with," it was too much. There he stood, his entire torso and face splotchy with shaving cream and newly cut hairs, a mess of man flesh that needed nothing but rinsed.

Unfortunately, our options were scarce. There was a vase that was soaking after I rinsed out a bunch of cigarettes and melted snow left by our mail-getter Scotty and a pot of water that I'd boiled eggs in yesterday.

I passed them into Mack as options and silently affirmed my belief that showers are overrated. I also found my water bottle from yesterday's gym trip and another one that Leigh left here a few days ago (I think), two sources that gave us about 2 cups of clean water. We decided those should be saved for brushing teeth.

Mack closed himself into the bathroom and did his best to solve a problem we haven't had to deal with since the bucket showers of Ghana days. He emerged smelling an extra lot like shaving cream.

"What'd you go for?" I asked him. "The egg water or the cigarette water?"

I can't imagine a more disgusting choice to make. He went for the eggs.

Enjoy 2011. Because the world is supposed to end next year.