My Halloween Baby

Tomorrow Will turns 13. Earlier today the Man and I recollected the night that Will was born. Around midnight of October 31st, 2002, I thought my dinner was disagreeing with me. Then it struck me I might be going into labor. The Man called the hospital, but the hospital was not impressed with my contractions. And then suddenly my contractions were coming faster and faster. We hopped into the car (okay, I don't think I was hopping mood at that point; I think the Man half-carried me to the car) and sped off to the hospital. I was fairly sure I was going to give birth in the backseat of our Honda Accord, but amazingly I didn't. Made it into a wheelchair, into the delivery room, and a few minutes later, Will was born. I believe I was still begging for an epidural at the time.

When Will was born he looked like a prizefighter. Who'd lost. Jack had been a beautiful baby and was a beautiful toddler and we felt so bad for Will, the ugly duckling. But around the time he turned six-months old, he blossomed into a pretty baby. He's still  cute.

He's getting old, though. Tonight he's at the school dance. Last year the sixth graders could go to the spring dance, but Will wanted no part of it. This year, there was no question that he'd go. I dropped him off at a friend's house around 5:00 so they could all get ready together.

He called from the dance just a few minutes ago, wanting to know if he could the spend the night at his friend's house. Now, we're pretty good with the last minute sleepover requests, but usually Will's asking to stay with one of his friends we know well and whose family we know. This friend we don't know. I'm friendly with his mom and like her a lot, but we're not close. And the friend has an older brother I don't know at all. On top of that,  I don't know this family's policies on Internet usage, whether or not they have HBO (and let their kids watch it), if they allow phones upstairs (we don't), etc., etc. So my answer was no.

He seemed okay with the decision. I remember asking my parents if I could sleep over at somebody's house and halfway hoping they'd say no. Maybe Will felt the same way about this sleepover. Who knows?

So happy birthday, Will; sorry you'll be waking up on your birthday in your boring old room with your boring old dog (Travis!) scratching at the door. Me, I'm glad you'll be home with us. You'll spend plenty of birthdays out on the town; we've only got you for a little while longer.

Quick Update

So I know you're dying to know how the colonoscopy went, although probably not in detail. Okay, so here's the scoop: much to my amazement, it was a piece of cake. The day before wasn't a whole lot of fun, but I learned something: I can fast. Well, I can fast as long as fasting includes drinking a lot of chicken broth and eating bowls of lemon jell-o. I never knew that about myself.

Here's the thing. If you've ever given birth, without or without drugs, pretty much everything else is easy peasy--root canals, gum surgery, colonoscopies, whatever. This is something I forget and then I'm reminded: I'm a soldier. I've been through the wars. 

Anyway, if you're at that age when it's time to get your first colonoscopy (that would be 50), then please do. Colon cancer is the third most common cancer, excluding skin cancers (the first two are lung and prostate, interestingly enough). Getting screened is the best way to prevent it. Colonoscopy bonus? Once you get home, you just nap and snack and watch saved episodes of "The Great British Baking Show" all day. Really, it's like getting a free vacation.

So now it's late and I'm about ready for bed, but I remembered that I wanted to get back into my blogging routine. So here I am to say hello and get a colonoscopy when it's time and I'm reading Patti Smith's new memoir, M Train, and it's really good but to enjoy it you have to be the sort of person who doesn't mind it when writers aren't particularly linear, something I don't mind in nonfiction but can't really handle in fiction.

All right then: see you Friday with more public service announcements!

P.S. Do you watch The Great British Baking Show? So much fun! You can check out episodes on PBS online--http://video.pbs.org/program/great-british-baking-show/

I'm not looking forward to Friday ...

I am 51 years old. For the last year I've put off the procedure doctors encourage you to undergo when you enter your 5th decade . Do you know which one I mean? Starts with "colon" ends with "oscopy"? Ideally I should have gotten one the minute I turned 50, but for some reason I kept putting it off ... who knows why?

Oh,  I think we all know why. But Friday, I bite the bullet and get 'er done. I've been dreading it since I made the appointment. No, I've been dreading it since I was 45 and know the dreaded c-oscopy was a mere five years away.

I would like to write about something other than having this procedure, but it's on my mind. I've been snacking all day, storing up fuel for Thursday, the day of the big fast. The day of chicken broth and lemon jell-o. I imagine some people lose weight in the days preceding their colonoscopy; I suspect I'll gain five pounds.

***

We had such a strange weekend. Will was out of the house almost the entire time. On Friday afternoon, he went to a friend's house, and then on Saturday morning he went to another friend's birthday party and ended up spending the night. Sunday afternoon he went to the movies some other friends.

I'm glad Will has lots of friends, but I'm not sure I'm ready to give him up yet. I've had a couple of dreams recently where he's a baby again, and I think I know why.

The other strange thing that happened this weekend is that the Man and I went to a party where we knew virtually no one and had a great time. I've recently gotten to be friends with a woman in my neighborhood who also goes to our church. She turned 50 last week and had a humongous birthday party on Saturday night. Our plan was to go in, give her a bottle of wine, wait around for 15 minutes and then go get a pizza. We were there for over three hours. My socializing strategy for meeting people was to go up to individuals or couples standing by themselves and say, "Hi, I'm Frances, this is my husband, and we don't know anybody here."

We met a lot of people that way. We made new best friends for life. We also saw some other folks from church, and my dog-walking neighbor Mel, who was wearing long pants. I never see Mel in long pants--he runs marathons and is always dressed for a run when I see him. We ran into Will's youth group leader and learned the origins of her admittedly odd first name.

So, yes, the two introverts enjoyed themselves. We were glad we went. We were glad to go home when it was over. For a few hours, I forgot about my colonoscopy. Life was good. It will be good again.

Friday Report

So you're wondering how it went with Betty. I think it went well, though I was sort of weirdly exhausted by the end of it. Certainly the house--or the rooms that Betty and her three daughters cleaned--were beautiful, shiny and fresh. They cleaned the dust off the ceiling fan and made the boys' bathtub a thing of beauty. I couldn't be more pleased.

I was interested that when they were done cleaning Betty left a religious tract on my counter with a note ("Thank you for letting us clean your house, I hope you're happy with the job we did today ..."). The tract is the sort that most of us are familiar with--Did you know that Jesus died on the cross for your sins so that you wouldn't burn in Hell? Say the Sinner's Prayer today so that you will be saved. Given that I have a postcard of Mary and baby Jesus on my fridge alongside a poem by Kathleen Norris called "Imperatives" that begins,

Look at the birds
Consider the lilies
Drink ye all of it
Ask
Seek
Knock
Enter by the narrow gate
Do not be anxious
Judge not; do not give dogs what is holy ...


you'd think I might have been given a pass on the whole "we're concerned about the state of your soul" thing, but I guess not. A little disappointing, I have to say.

It's funny having a stranger in your house, especially one that's mucking about in your space for a couple of hours. You start to see what's weird about your stuff, at least if you're me. For instance, for the last three or four years we've had this dangling from our livingroom ceiling,

which is a dried bundle of Salvia clippings from the garden. The Man trimmed back the plants one day and liked how the remnants looked, so naturally he bound them together and hung them from a hook, as one does (the hook was already there--I believe the previous owners of the house hung a lamp from it). I've always loved our Salvia, but looking at it through Betty's eyes, I could understand that she might think us quite insane.

Then there's our fireplace mantle, that runs the length of the wall, upon which we have displayed all sorts of things, including one of the Man's many fine documentary photographs, various children's art projects and some barbecue sauce:

Sometimes I wonder what my children think when they go to other people's houses. Do they think, "Ah, at last, normal decor?" Or do they think the normal stuff is weird? Do they wonder where the display of barbecue sauce is? Where their friends parents display their bundles of sticks?

***

So I believe the house cleaner experience was a success. When I get rich, I'll have Betty and her daughters (everyone in the family is stunningly gorgeous, by the way--it's like have the cast of "Petticoat Junction" clean your house) come weekly. Will they bring me religious materials to read every time they come? Will the tracts become increasingly scarier? Should I start leaving my Bible out in obvious places? I'm curious to find out what happens next. Stay tuned!