Embellished Truth & Polite Fiction

We were sitting around the table eating some hot soup and nibbling biscuits after J and KJ got some purty twinkly lights up on the front of our house this afternoon, and Eliana noticed a pet store ad next to her on the table. This ad had a lovely picture of a big fluffy dog with gray and white fur and a cute little red ribbon on its head.

“Ooooh.. a beautiful puppy! I want a beautiful puppy for my birfday!” she said delightedly.
“Oh, really,” answered her father. “And what would you do with that beautiful puppy?”
“Pet it.” Ellie replied very matter-of-factly.
“What else would you do with it?” J inquired further.
“Be nicey.” she said decidedly.
“Would you feed it?” Daddy asked.
“Yes.”
“Would you throw a ball for it?” I inquired.
“Yes… and pet it.” she replied.
“Would you take it for a walk?”
“Hm.. yes.”
“Would you pick up its poop?” always an important one for J.. priorities people.
“Yes.” she said smiling.
“And… what would you do with the poop after you pick it up?” I wondered.. you just never know with a two year old..
“Pet it!” she said, smiling bigger.

On Thanksgiving in 2003, my husband rationalized that since my labor when I had Aidan had started at 3pm, and when I had Kieran had started at 9pm – 6 hours later – then, surely, my labor would begin at 3am with Torrin, our third son. We went to my parents’ for Thanksgiving dinner, I picked at my food having very little room in my belly for anything at that point, and then we all went for a walk.. well, I went for more of a.. waddle. Seriously, I felt like I had a freakin’ head between my legs… because I kinda did.

A couple days earlier I had been lying there in my OB/GYN’s office, legs up in those awesome stirrup thingies, and she was ‘checkin’ me out’ to see ‘what was happening’. Well, I was over 4 centimeters dilated at that time. Yeah, as in almost half way there.

After some Pumpkin pie with copious amounts of cool whip and some hot de-caf coffee, we headed home with our 3 year old, Aidan, and our nearly 2 year old, Kieran. We tucked our wee bairns snug in their beds, and curled up for a restful night of sleep/pee/sleep/attempt to roll over/sleep/pee/sleep… yeah, you get the idea.

I woke up to a whopper of a contraction. I rolled over and looked at the clock. 3am. I wish I had a newborn picture of him to share with you.. but I don’t even have any to enjoy myself. You see, I’m such a lame parent that I never even developed them. They are still on rolls of film. Nice.

Anyway, we hopped out of bed at 3am and called my mom to come over. She came, intending to have my dad take over after letting him sleep a bit more, so that she could join us at the hospital.. after all, she had been there for the other two boys’ births. We were off on our way. Good thing there was no traffic.

They got us checked in in the hospital, hooked me up to all their retarded machines, and gave me a stupid IV.. even though I told them I did not and would not be needing it (yeah.. guess who was RIGHT). Once we were set up, we called my mom who informed us that Dad had not been real keen on the idea of rushing over citing ‘She’ll probably be a while anyway…’ um, yeah, not with my track record. Anyway.. I shot him out (I’m not kidding.. he would have knocked my doctor over if she had not been ready), at about 8:37am.. all 8lb and 13oz of him.

Today, we celebrated his birthday with pumpkin pie for breakfast.. and a trip to Chuck E. Cheese’s for dinner (and I’m even lamer now because I forgot to even bring my camera to either grandma’s house for Thanksgiving.. or to that creepy mouse’s pizza joint.. yay, me).

So here’s to you, my little Punkin…