It was ten years ago today!

I am back. I HAVE to send out the most sincere birthday greeting to......the Lad. He turned 10 today. I cannot believe that ten years has passed since his birth. It was the most profound change in my life. I love that kid more each day as he turns into, I hope, a fine, well adjusted and successful young man. How is that for sentimental? I was going to go into what was going on around me ten years ago and may hit some of those salient points but something more present came up last night.

Anyway, I will say that ten years ago, I had made the wife promise me that she would not give birth until after she had gone on maternity leave. The Lad was due on or around January 29th. The Wife's last day was January 17th and she thought that she would have two weeks to just sort of get ready. Ain't life funny? We had dinner at the Outlaws' when they still had their house with the Wife's aunt (mother in law's sister not father in law's sister, blah) and her family (husband, two daughters and daughter's then boyfriend, now husband)(They were there every week, so that now when my mother in law invites them for Friday's my father in law, this always cracks me up, refers to them as "freeloaders". which is what they were/are). I do not recall the dinner specifically but I am sure it was crap. It was also motherfucking COLD outside. Anyway, it is about 8 and we are about to have dessert when the Wife tells me that her water broke (or she pissed herself and was too embarrassed to say so, either way she had some wet underwear)(as an aside, at least for her 40th birthday she was not in wet underwear at Fantasy Island in Grand Island, NY, and I am thinking that I did not lube up her panties that day, but I digress and possibly give too much information).

We bid a hasty good bye, go out into the cold and the car and go home. There are no contractions to speak of so we, the Wife, calls the hospital. By eleven, they tell us to come in. It is back out into the bitter cold, drive to the hospital, find a parking spot which was pretty easy, and check in. Her OB-GYN is on call that night and sees her. There was some "water" leakage but no cirvical dilation and no contractions. We are told that the baby could come in two hours or two weeks. We are sent home. It is back out into the cold, the damn fucking cold! We get in the door around 1 and I am exhausted, so I go to bed (I am such a good husband). The Wife spends the time fretting, oh by the way, as we walk in the door, she gets her first contraction. She lets me sleep until 4:10 and then wakes me to tell me that we need to go to the hospital. By 4:30, I am coherent and just gaining my bearings. By 5, we have gone back into the cold and dark, and arrive back at the hospital. Finding a parking spot was great. Funny, but there was a spot right out front.

Now, they check out the Wife and I get us/her admitted. Long story short, no dilation for the first half hour, then bang (I think I heard something pop, but I needed caffeine, so I could have been hallucinating) it is time to bring the doc with the epidural. He is giving his list of possible side effects and we/the Wife agrees. The needle (harpoon?) is out and getting near her spine when the Wife says, "I have to push!" The labour nurse, Debbie (very comforting and assuring, sure she has experienced thousands of these) puts her arm under the Wife's hospital garment and feels the dilation (okay, another chick was putting her hand in the Wife's nether regions and it was not the least bit sexual). She waves away the dude with the needle and it is off to the delivery room we go.

I won't go into the gory details. Besides, I was so tired, I was on autopilot. I needed a coffee and I was not doing anything. It was all very surreal to me. It still is. At 6:55 am, Saturday, January 18, 1997, I welcomed the Lad into this world. It was the coldest day of the year outside but I did not feel it eventhough I was in and out of the cold day and night air that day.

I guess I got into a trip down personal memory lane. The funny thing last night was that the Wife was over at her friend's place so I was left alone with the Lad. He is washing up when I hear some crying. I did not hear anything crash so what is he doing? He comes in to the room in tears. He does not want to be turning 10. He wants to stay in grade 4 forever (I recall some guys who seemed to actually do that. I recall a guy who when I was in grade 4 was shaving and we think he had a wife and kids, then again that may have been a suburban myth) which can be arranged sort of (You do end up like Wooderson in "Dazed and Confused"-"I like high school girls. I keep getting older but they stay the same.") He figures that as he is getting older that he is closer to death.

There it is, at ten he has figured out that each day on Earth brings him closer to his last day. I had that one figured out by six, but I was exceptional or psychotic, either way. I wonder where he gets this trait from. He is my protege in so many ways. Poor kid! Of course, I am not scared of dying. I now have to get him to not fear the reaper. I am thinking we will be listening to a lot of Blue Oyster Cult from now on. Now, I just have to get him to see the lesson and plan of action to seize the day and not fear it!

That is all for today. Ciao!