Jun
1
June 1, 2006
Before Riley was born, I worried – like, I think, all pregnant women do – about something going horribly wrong. I worried at every checkup, every test; the nuchal translucency screening, the ultrasounds, every poke and prod that might reveal some unthinkable problem.
I worried when I had spotting, then full-on bleeding; I worried when Riley moved a lot (is he moving too much?), I worried when he was still (is he…dead?); I worried when we did the 3-D ultrasound for fear we would peer at the glowing imagery and observe in perfect detail: three separate noses.
I became downright morbid at times, sitting propped in bed saucer-eyed reading books that told of nightmarish births where babies choked on cords or meconium or whose hearts stopped for no reason.
There were two things that happened during my pregnancy that scared me deeply, that made me afraid to relax and believe for one second that things would turn out okay. Things that, despite my usual dismissal of superstition, bothered me, kind of a whole lot.
The first thing was when I traveled to Japan last March on business. We had gone to a temple where you could exchange a coin for a tiny rolled-up paper fortune, an omikuji, and when I opened mine, it read “The person you are waiting for will not arrive.”
“I don’t like my fortune,” I said immediately, and my companions showed me how you could tie your bad fortune to a post and leave it behind you. I did that, with shaking hands, but I saw those words when I closed my eyes that night, and I never quite forgot them. The person you are waiting for will not arrive.
A few months later – well after we knew our baby’s sex and had settled on his name – JB and I were down south at his family’s cabin on the Umpqua river, and one afternoon we spent some time walking through an old cemetery in the area. Most of the people buried in this cemetery are multiple generations of families, and many rows have the same last name on each crumbling stone marker. I was lumbering my bulk around in the summer heat, looking for good photo opportunities, when I saw the family name Riley. When I looked down the row, I saw a small, plain headstone that read Baby Boy Riley.
I don’t know how long I stared at that thing. Or how many times I thought of it later. Baby Boy Riley. Baby Boy Riley.
Oh, I don’t know where I’m going with this. Just that I was so scared for his well-being, and he was okay, and he’s still okay, and I am so incredibly grateful (I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately). And the fear never goes away, does it? The worry, it will always be there.
I can’t guarantee his safety. I can’t insulate him from every possible harm in the world. There’s something necessary about truly understanding that, about taking on that burden in order to give perspective to my responsibilities. But it pinpricks my eyes, it takes my breath away, it leaves me reeling.
May
31
May 31, 2006
As one of the final (HA!) steps of all this remodeling business, we are going to replace our ugly-ass gray carpeting with hardwood floors. We certainly discussed the best possible timing for this endeavor, and I think we can all agree that “right before your infant son starts learning how to walk” is the hands-down winner.
Sorry, Riley. Perhaps we can encase you in some sort of protective plastic ball.
This process is scheduled for the second week of June, when contractors will descend upon the house once again, no doubt spraying lube everywhere with wanton glee, rip out our horrific Cthulu-esque carpets (the detritus that sifts through an old rug? It-Which-Cannot-Be-Named), and sand and finish the oak floors that lurk underneath.
Apparently this will fill our home with deadly toxins (score another one for being the Best Parents Ever) and we’ll have to be out for a few days. Our plan is to stay at a nearby hotel, which I am sure will be both luxurious and relaxing, much like visiting a fancy spa in Arizona.
Oh, except we’ll have the boy. Damn. So basically it’ll be three days holed up in a cheap motel with a 9-month-old. Don’t chew the comforter, Riley dear, haven’t you seen that Dateline episode with the stain-revealing ultraviolet light?
JB is leaving next week for a business trip to Taipei, so in some insanely short amount of time between his return and the Great Carpet Excavation (now showing on the lesbian porn channel!) we have to remove every single item of furniture that is currently touching the floor, and store it. Somewhere.
There’s the garage, but it’s already crammed with random house-cruft. There’s the kitchen, but it’s pretty much the size of a Triscuit. I guess we could stare at everything real hard like Luke Skywalker did when he was in that swamp and hope we’re able to levitate it all.
Honestly, I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do. It should be interesting. And by “interesting” I mean, of course, “yet another horrific remodel nightmare, even worse than the mystery lube”.
:::
Hey! Speaking of terrible things relating to the place we call home, where our precious, edible child currently lives, we are infested with vermin. Oh, I’m not even lying:
Check that out: FOUR rats. FOUR. And that’s just what I saw when I happened to look out under the bird feeder the yesterday morning. Remember how we had ONE rat, and I called him Frank, and it was sort of cute, kind of? Well, it is officially GROSS now. As in pestilence, city-baby-attacked-by-rats (anyone remember GBH? ..no?) gross.
The only good thing to come of this is the email exchange JB had with his mother today:
JB’s mom: what is with all the rats??? seriously, are these in your yard?? You need to trap and kill them, JB!
JB: Like overnight they descended on our house to feed. Extermination process has begun but they are already in our crawlspace and in our walls. Last night I had to drill a couple holes in Riley’s room trying to get at them.
I shouldn’t laugh, but haaaaa! Sometimes the man is all that and a bag of chips.
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