BABY DAY APPROACHETH

Sunday, March 8, 2009


If all goes according to plan, in twelve days I'll be in the hospital with Malko beside me. I almost thwarted the plan ten minutes ago, while trying to extract some very solidly frozen ice cream from the carton with a very sharp knife; holding the carton steady between one hand and my stomach, it occurred to me that the proximity of the knife to my stomach was looking alarmingly like the beginnings of a home C-section. I had just cleaned the kitchen floor, and didn't want to make another mess with a Do-It-Yourself surgical procedure, so I wisely, sagely withdrew the knife from the ice cream and put the ice cream in the toaster oven, set on High.

The fact that we are soon going to have another child is becoming very real, maybe especially because his crap--I mean, adorable clothes, vehicles, pacifiers, beds, stuffed animals, and books--is already lying around the house, some on its way to the washing machine and some on its way to yet-to-be-determined places in Lula's bedroom. Malko will be sleeping next to Joedy and me, of course, in a bassinet by our bed during the first few months, but ultimately he and Lula will share her room, which means that a thorough sorting of Lula Stuff needs to be done to make way for the Malko Stuff. I was going to tackle her room today, hand-washing her rug and finding a changing table at the thrift store and putting up curtains and, by the way, washing Diablo, who smells like a rancid camel, but guess what? It didn't happen. Instead, I napped. Then I decided to eat some ice cream.

It's real but also surreal to think that in less than two weeks we're going to have another member in our family, and unlike Mic and Mac, the Siamese fighting fish in bowls on the mantle, who are small, yes, but nevertheless very much part of the family, this small family member is going to be very loud at times and quite frankly hard to ignore.

Ok, that didn't sound right at all. What I meant was that he is going to have a very big presence for all his small-sizedness, and his being here, on the outside of my stomach, is probably going to turn a lot of our established habits and routines on their head(s).

Having written that and having tried to think of which established habits and routines are going to be turned on their head(s), I realized that in fact we don't have any established habits and routines. We just kind of do things. So, having a newborn in the house, demanding very vocally to eat and be cuddled and changed and jiggled, might not change that much at all. We'll just keep on doing things. Some of the things might need to be done just as we're (finally) falling asleep, and some in the very middle of the night, and some at the crack of dawn, and some of us might find ourselves getting a wee bit testy at all the extra things we find ourselves having to do, but one of the benefits of having a C-Section is that you get to go home with a month's supply of Vicodin.

Some people might think it's crass and even shocking for a mother to admit to looking forward to having painkillers on hand right after her baby is born. I kind of agree, but you know what? Who cares. There are times when you have to take all the help you can get. And if the help comes in the form of a little white pill that not only soothes the burn of the gash in your gut but also helps you smile at your partner, instead of biting his head off, when he asks if "everything's ok" after you woke up twice in the night drowning in a sea of nightsweat and your melon-sized breasts keep shooting milk into your nostril(s) and the goddamn cat walked on the baby and your other child, the big one, peed in bed, so there are more sheets to wash--

Those little white pills? I'll take them, thank you very much. They'd probably go down better with a Lemon Drop, but--ahem--even this mother thinks that might be pushing things.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

good god, Isabel, I'll fed ex you thawed ice cream if you promise to stay away from knives and toasters...

packofchicklets said...

yikes! is it that soon!!!???? jeepers golly gee, I didn't realize. well, that means that i'm likely going to meet the tiny fellow when my mom and I come down the coast in mid-april! woo-hoo! and you can regail me with stories of childbirthin'. in the meantime, try not to hurt yourself!

uncleremus said...

hey there gorilla-girl

im a firm believer of "better living thru chemistry"

whatever it takes to get you thru the day!!!!

prehistoric said...

I'd say,just keep on doing things. Routines tend to get angry when you don't serve them properly...

uncleremus said...

BTW

im VERY impressed that you can sing Happy Birthday
backwards!!!!

thats TRUE talent!!!!

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