Baby Stuff

My wife's cell phone rang one day a couple of years ago and this is what I heard on my end:

"Hello?"

Slight pause.

"SQUEEEEEEEAALLLLLL!!!!!"

My wife is about as even-tempered as they come. It took about half of our 16 years of marriage to get her trained that way and with the unfortunate help of some medical maladies, she's about as level-headed as a real woman can get. I count my lucky stars. So, when she squeals at someone on the phone at top volume, it gets my attention in a big way. In addition to scaring the ever-living hell outta me, it makes me wonder what on earth is so scary, thrilling or exciting as to get her to squeal like a banshee.

After scraping the shredded remains of myself off the wall, I looked over to see that it was a squeal of happy excitement and not one of pain and suffering. There have been other squeals from time to time during our marriage from either of us but this is not one of THOSE stories. Some other time, I promise.

The conversation continued, my wife dancing in place as she spoke. It looked like a version of the pee-pee dance on cocaine. Or what I would imagine such a dance to look like!

"That's SO INCREDIBELY AWESOME!! We're so happy for you!"

She already had my undivided attention but this really took the cake. She was telling someone how happy *I* was but I still had no clue as to what I should be so happy about. In an attempt to answer a bunch of questions, I gave her an ASL sign to ask, "Who the HELL is THAT?" (The nice thing about ASL is that you can communicate very effectively very quickly from across the room.) My wife fingerspelled back, "Godzilla." Well, that's what it looked like in the middle of the dance she was doing. (The bad thing about ASL is that it doesn't work well when someone has temporarily lost nearly all motor control.) I figured the, "Godzilla," interpretation of her signing was probably due to my own ineptitude with ASL. I'd just have to wait.

"Ohhhhh, you guys are so awesome! We can't believe you've actually decided to do it!"

I raised a questioning eyebrow and directed it at my wife, only be ignored. "Do it?" The first thing that came to mind was that someone was about to have sex. But out of the 1,000 or more people I know, all of them are already having sex on a regular basis, at least the ones who should be, and besides, that first squeal was not the kind of thing I would expect to hear when there is news of other people having sex. Only when *I'm* having sex. Again, I digress. I wondered if someone were buying a house, or a car or going on a trip. Nah, couldn't be. They don't merit that kind of squeal either. Getting married? Closer but still . . . . I felt like I was losing ground and sat there squirming, irritated that I couldn't figure out who was talking to my wife and what they were talking about that was so truly wonderful.

Girlish banter went back and forth for going on 30 minutes. I gave up listening intently after 4.736 seconds and went back to surfing the web, listening with half an ear at my wife's half of the conversation. An intermittent squeal would issue forth from time to time, twanging my already irritated nerves.

I perked up right away when I heard her say, "Goodbye." She squealed again as if she thought she needed to get more of my attention. This time, it hurt my ears. I suspect she just had some leftover squealing that had to wait until she was off the phone. This squeal was even more unnatural because she was trying to talk to me as she squealed. I waited for that long, painful ordeal to be over. A century went by in those few moments. I sprouted the first few gray hairs of my life. (They still haven't gone away.) My hearing ability declined by 25 decibels. My mind began to shiver and quake in it's bunker. Brain cells began to retreat by the millions. The spectre of a mental institution began to loom before me in a hazy vision of a future living amongst white-suited nurses and drooling, dopey-eyed cell mates.

(Hey, I had to suffer, you have to suffer!)

I told my dearly beloved to take a deep breath and try again. She did. FINALLY, I get the picture. "D. and J. have decided to try to have a baby!" (J. is my cousin and D. is her husband.)

"Oh, really?" I replied.

"Yes, isn't it GREAT?!!" She was getting close to squealing again. She took some more deep breaths while I coached her. I was nearly qualified to start teaching LaMaze classes by now.

"Wow!. That's cool." I turned to surf the web some more. A moment later, I was peeling myself off the wall again. This time, I had a bloody lip and a black eye.

"What the hell did you do THAT for?"

"Aren't you excited for them?" She glared at me.

"Of course I am, my dear. I just don't think I can get in a squeal like you did. Besides, you've kinda cornered the market on squeals for the day. Or the year."

This time, I was able to successfully duck. How is it that a man can take a perfectly happy wife and turn her into a raging troll in a microsecond? I've done it many times but damned if I could actually explain how it works to another man, assuming said man would WANT to do it. Somehow, it just happens on occasion and no clue as to how.

I grabbed my wife's flailing arms. "Honey, don't be mad. I'm happy for them. I look forward to having another little nephew or niece in my life. Best of all, they live close enough for us to spoil the crap outta the little tyke and give it back to terrorize his or her parents!"

"You're an ass," she said and tore herself away from my grasp.

"Yes, honey. That's why you married me," I said with the usual laugh. The joke usually made her smile. Not this time, however. Bummer. She must be really pissed.

After a couple of weeks, she finally cooled off. Things were good again. J. came and visited us one day. She hadn't gotten knocked up yet but she said they were trying. I offered to loan her my, "Loose Sorority Babes on Campus," video in case they needed suggestions. She declined. Strange. I would have thought that would be high on her list of educational material on how to make babies. Oh, well. Of course, my wife and I were jazzed to chat with her about the whole thing. She was excited. My wife was excited. I was excited. I assumed D. was excited, though he wasn't there that day. Excitement abounding everywhere. I swear, I could hear the harps and see the winged cherubs in the background.

At least the squealing was over. For the moment.

--Wag--

Life's beginnings

"I need a favor from you." J. was confident, and rightly so, that I'd do anything for her. She's my beloved cousin, after all.

"What d'ya need, doll?" I asked her.

"Well, you remember that we didn't do the video of R's birth."

"Yup."

"I was wondering, could you do a write up of it? You know. The actual events. Just write what happened."

"Hmmmm." I was already thinking, How could I make that work? I loved the idea the instant she brought it up.

"Well, you know," I said, "I wrote a little about it on my blog."

"Yeah, but I was hoping for more of a play by play. I was really out of it and for all intents and purposes, I wasn't even really there."

"I do remember that. Of course, I'd love to do it. I'm flattered you would ask."

"That's right. I couldn't think of anyone better to do this project."

"Now I'm complimented, too!" I doubt I'll be able to get through the door and down the hallway to go to bed tonight! "I'll get started on and keep you posted, J. This should be a really cool project!"

We hung up and I reflected back.

I turned to my wife. "That was J. She wants me to write about the birth. All the gory details."

My wife says, "That should be fun. Why don't you go back to the very beginning and write about all the stuff that went on during the pregnancy and even before that?"

"That's a good idea. I think I can handle that. You'll have to help me fill in the details. J and D should put details into it too. It would be a thrill and a half." I continued, "I should start at the birth, however, and do the rest of the prelude story as flashbacks. That would be really cool."

"Yeah!" My wife gets excited rather easily when there's a great project in the works. Sometimes, I think she doesn't consider the amount of work that has to go into such a project. 'Specially when someone else is doing the work. I, on the other hand, focus ONLY on the amount of work which is why I never get anything done! But this. This is a project of worth. Of value. Of fun, even, despite the work.

I can hardly wait to get started.

It only takes me three hours to get it rolling. I can hardly wait to finish this one. The above will be the first section or chapter or introduction to this story. I know how it ends. I can't wait to tell it to you!

--Wag--