Poor Suzi's mom. I hope the pain level goes down/gets better managed really soon.

My brain does that to me, for not much reason, Hec. I cut off(well, Mom, did) tons of hair yesterday.

I finally called a friend of mom's - J - to see if she was still planning on hitting the hospital today. J assured me that she would find out what is up and call me by 1pm. I just hate that I'm hesitant to call mom.

I know why they don't, but geeesh, letting patients use a cell phone would be MUCH easier than those hospital phones.

A bit ago, when I was calling J and crying, I looked up to see a maintenance guy on a ladder in the cube next to me. He was crawling up into the ceiling, but man, way to intrude on an emotional breakdown. He gave me a pitying look before disappearing into the ceiling tile. Blarg. Thinking back, I can giggle about it, but at the time, I wanted to kick the ladder out from under him.

JZ is eager to play dressup with the baby.

Me: We don't have a lot in the tiny sizes. How come there's so much pink?
JZ: The Buffistas gave us mostly practical gifts [ed note: Yay carseat! Yay Baby Bjorn!] and I was counting on them to de-pink us.
Me: Well, it's not like I'm anti-pink. God knows if its good enough for Jilli and msbelle it's good enough for Matilda. It's just...there's a lot of it. I don't know if any of the hats will fit.
JZ: What about juliana's Hot Babe hat?
Me: Yeah, that might work.

She's off to breast feeding class, which gives me a few more minutes to unpack. I think I'll be shuttling back and forth today. Baby pictures were promised by early afternoon.

Actually, I'm going to request that localistas visit JZ in the next couple days if they can. I don't like leaving her alone so much but I really have a lot of house stuff to do. Anybody? Bueller? Baby snuzzling! I'll give rides home to the public transporters!

Ok. This just happened, and probably only juliana will appreciate it to it's fullest extent.

Boss: Did none of you notice that the Diet Coke Fairy came last night?
Me: He did?? I love the Diet Coke Fairy!
Boss: Geez! Not even a thank you!
Me: Thank you for the Diet Coke, Fairy!
cue uproarious laughter
Irene: Boss, you great big pansy!
Me and Irene: LET"S GO MEET THE PANSIES!!!!

Hec, I don't know what kind of car you have, but when I was looking for information about installing Ellie's infant seat, I found many "experts" saying that putting the seat on the side (i.e. not in the middle) if you have the LATCH system in your car is just as safe as putting the seat in the middle*. That's what we did with Ellie and it worked well. Plus, it would give Emmett more room in the back.

*not as safe in a side impact, but since it can be more securely installed, generally safer in all other situations leading to an overall recommendation of using LATCH if you have it, even if it means the baby is on the side.

my mom wanted to buy her baby fangs, Hec. I think we can help you.

I don't know if any of the hats will fit.

My friend cut off the toes of those thick almost slipper but still socks socks for her babies when they were too little-headed for regular baby hats. The sock trick worked especially well to create formal black hats the babies wore to our friend's wedding they came to when they were a couple of weeks old.

Two last birth stories.

We got to the pushing stage. Dr. Shoo is with us. She's late thirties, asian woman, very no-nonsense. Delivered a lot of babies. She gives me my instructions. "I want you to count to ten slowly as the contraction peaks. She'll push on your count. Then take a breath and do another ten count. We'll do sets of three. Okay?"

Okay, I say, I'm ready!

We all stare expectantly at the contraction numbers on the monitor. One starts to build.

Dr. Shoo: Now.
Me: I'm going to count backwards. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-5-6-7-8...

At this point Dr. Shoo gives me a look. This is what the look says. "You fucking idiot. Your wife is giving birth to your child. She's been in labor for more than a day. She's in pain and exhausted. You have only one task at this point. Count. To. Ten. Something you knew how to do in kindergarten. Get your shit together, jackhole."

JZ was more verbal. "We're not counting in crazy melty land!"

After my fiasco in counting, though, my coaching was pretty good.

The other story is when JZ was getting her epidural. She's very needlephobic and the way she deals with it is by talking her way through it. So it usually sounds like, "Okay, and now they're putting the needle in. And I'm NOT running away. I am staying still. And...OW! Fuck that hurts. Fucking fuck fuck fuck! Motherfucking fuckheads!"

So, I try to warn the doctor beforehand. "Don't take it personally." But the doctor was cool and snarky, and talked right back to her and kept her distracted. Except she's very flinchy about the whole thing. And flinched when she got the preliminary lidocaine shot.

Me: It's very important that you're still when you get the epidural. You have to be completely still when he starts it. You can't pull away or jerk. You have to be calm.
JZ: Okay. He's starting the epidural now. And I'm just going to talk. I'm going to be a little chatter monkey. And chatter monkeys live in Indonesia and they have long silky purple fur. And... [her body is tensing up and I'm afraid she's going to jerk away again]
Me: Jacqueline! You have to focus. You have to be very still.
JZ: [glaring at me] ...and chatter monkeys will BITE the fingers off people who are too bossy. They will bite them right off.

t hearts JZ. Lots and lots and lots and lots.