crack house mama I have this weird countdown thingie that happens in my head when I'm waiting for something, and I'm doing that now. "I wonder if we'll make it through that package of toilet paper before I have the baby." "I wonder if that bar of soap will run out before the baby is born." When I was a kid, I used to do this sort of thing with Christmas and summer vacation.So the race is on between the box of laundry detergent and the onset of labor. I'm at the point in my pregnancy where people are "trying really hard" to not call every day to see if I've had the baby yet. My parents and I have had to console my 85-year-old grandmother that yes indeed, we will notify her when her first great-grandchild is born, it won't be one of those things that she finds out at the next family gathering. "Oh, didn't you hear? Elizabeth had the baby! She's six months old now. Looks kinda like Gorbachev. " She doesn't need to call every day. I'm in kinda a tight spot with the parents-in-law. I love them dearly, but they're old, feeble hicks. My MIL just had hip replacement surgery but keeps insisting that she and my FIL want to be notified when I'm in labor so that they can come be with me in the hospital, and then come help out after the birth. The thought of my 70-year-old FIL peering between my legs when I'm pushing asking "What's that? Is that the baby's head, or is that just part of the mommy? Everything is just kinda bulgy down there!" puts me on edge, and the concept of my bedridden MIL "helping out" is tiresome and sort of sad. But, my mother is going to be there when I'm in labor, because, well, she's my mommy and she used to work in L&D. She went through 48 hours of labor with me without medication. I only want her and my husband with me, to fend off the nurses and their tubes and needles and probes, and to tell the truth, I wouldn't even have them or the nurses there if I didn't know better. So my parents-in-law will just have to deal with being second on the call list. I'm not going to feel bad for it. I wish I could have had a home birth. Damn insurance. I think I've figured out what to tell that group of people that keep asking what our "nursery theme" is going to be (as if we have a bedroom set aside for the baby in the first place...). "Our theme is crack house!" I'm going to say. "We have a dirty mattress in the corner for the baby to sleep on with hypodermic needles stuck in it. We've broken out the windows in the room and painted graffiti on the walls, and this weekend we're going to break a bunch of light bulbs, singe them with lighters, and scatter them around on the floor. We've paid a nanny to pass out in the corner and periodically have sex with strange men for money." I think it's a good idea! Then, whenever we need a babysitter, we can call social services on ourselves, and as an added bonus we can get the therapy and drug counselling that we so desperately need paid for by the state! Actually, that's scary. I used to work for a lawyer that was court-appointed to parents who lost their kids to social services. The State is not a good babysitter. |