July 28, 2005

Congratulations to the King

I was awakened at 4:30 this morning by the sound of a phone ringing. And ringing. And ringing. Our next door neighbors keep their phone turned up way too loud, and we can always hear it ring, so I assumed it was them. It rang several times, over nearly an hour, and I was about ready to get up and fire a couple of shotgun blasts into their house, when it stopped.

This morning, the King awakened me to tell me that it was his cell phone ringing, not our neighbors'. His boss had been trying to reach him, at 4:30 a.m., to give him some news:

He is going to be a Navy Chief Petty Officer!

I know this means nothing to most of you, but it's a very, very big deal. In fact, it's the climax of his career and is what he has been shooting for over the past 17 years in the military. It's a bit like becoming a company vice-president or a division head, and it comes with a lovely raise, most of which you spend buying all new uniforms. There is a month-long induction program he has to go through, and I may get to join a chief's wives' club or maybe go to some of his functions; I'm not sure how that works, so we'll see.

I'm so proud of you, sweetie! You completely deserve it, and I know you're going to make a great chief. Just don't start trying to give me orders, because you know that just don't fly. :)

July 25, 2005

I Simply Won't Allow It

Updated to include:

Dear God,

Okay, you're forgiven. Grrl's baby is okay, so now you just need to work on maybe getting her an hour or so of sleep a night. Oh, and maybe fix that whole AIDS epidemic in Africa thing.
And thanks for letting my mom be able to respond with four complete, coherent sentences yesterday when I talked to her on the phone, despite the Alzheimer's. That really made my day.

--Queenie
_____________________

Dear God,

You are being stupid. Don't you realize that everybody thinks the Book of Job is the crappiest book in the Bible and that you totally screwed Job over for no reason whatsoever, and that in addition, you are kind of a jerk sometimes? Surely you have realized that after four thousand years or however long it's been. So how can you be inflicting all of this on Grrl and her husband? Really, please just take a Valium or something and give the poor woman a break.

Sincerely,
Queenie

PS--About that time I stole a pair of earrings from Claire's when I was twelve? It was totally Leigh Ann Johannsen's idea. Totally.

July 19, 2005

The Best Doctor Ever--Too Bad I'll Never See Her Again

Yesterday we went to the hospital for a genetic counseling appointment. It basically involved talking to the genetic counselor about our family history to see whether we have any unusual risk factors that we might pass on to the baby.

The genetic counselor was a petite little brunette in scrubs, the legs of which were covered with kids' marker drawings. She had clearly let some of her littler patients draw all over her, which I thought was pretty cool for a doctor. She also insisted that she sit in the guest chair in her office and I take her fancy leather chair, because a kid had spilled juice on the guest chair and she didn't want the King or I to get all sticky.

When we walked into her office, we had the following conversation:

Gene Doctor: Hi! [shaking hands] You must be King and Queenie, right?

Me: Uh, yeah. [She knows our names?] We are.

King: Hi!

GD [sitting down and beginning to sketch a family tree on a blank piece of paper]: So, basically, we're just here to talk about your family today. Queenie, your mother has Alzheimer's Disease, and your younger brother has a seizure disorder, isn't that right?

Me: Eh? Actually, yes, that is right.

GD: And King, your mother has had some treatment for skin cancer, yes?

King: Yes, she has.

Me [in my head]: Wait! Um, you didn't actually read our chart, did you? Because, you know, doctors aren't supposed to do that! They're supposed to make you fill out a huge long form, and then they throw that away and ask you all the painful questions over again three times, because they can't be bothered to actually listen to you. And they are definitely not supposed to look up your name before your appointment and actually remember it when you come in their office! And let little kids draw happy faces on their pants! What kind of doctor are you???

The best kind, apparently. Too bad that unless our kid has some sort of horrific genetic disease that is our fault for passing on, we'll never see her again.

July 13, 2005

Like a Tiny, Very Speedy Train

Choo-choo-choo-choo-choo...

I rented a Doppler machine. Yesterday, the King and I heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time. That's right, I used the B word--call me crazy, but I'm beginning to think that in 29 weeks, we may be getting a roommate.

July 11, 2005

Perhaps It's Time I Found God

I am, according to the sticks I cannot stop peeing on and the sonogram I had a month ago, just about eleven weeks pregnant. Theoretically. (I've had virtually no symptoms other than horrifying lines on my boobs, so we'll just assume the pee sticks and the doc are correct.) Therefore, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what it will be like to have an actual small person here with me. And as a result, I have discovered the reason for fundamentalist religion. Not just fundie Christians, or Muslims, but any sort of hardcore, God-is-it-and-there-a'int-nothing-else spirituality.

It is so you can answer the three-year-old's favorite question: Why?

For example, here is a conversation I may one day have with the fetus, after it stops being a fetus:

Kid: Mommy, what's that?
Me: A goat, honey!
Kid: Why?
Me: Err, um, well, a long, long time ago, there was water everywhere, and there were lots of fish in it. Then one day, one of the fish crawled up on this island. But he died. Then another fish, one that had rudimentary lungs through some fluke of evolution, crawled up and lived. Then he met a girlfriend, and they had baby fish that could breathe air. Then, a long time later, this guy named Charles Darwin counted a whole bunch of little birds on this other island, and wrote a book about them...

It would just take forever, and frankly, I didn't pay that much attention in Bio 101. Hence, the fundamentalism. This conversation is much, much easier for the religiously minded parent:

Kid: Mommy, what's that?
Fundie parent: A goat, honey!
Kid: Why?
Fundie parent: Because God said so. Now stop bothering me.

See? So much easier. Perhaps I should go bust out my copy of the King James I got for my high school confirmation nine years ago and felt too guilty to ever throw away.

July 07, 2005

Not a Funny Day

I was planning a very witty post about my fabulous new house and the very, very empty third bedroom that we insisted the movers not put any boxes in, because it is going to be the, ahem, "tiny passenger's" room, assuming the tadpole is still hanging out and doing okay.

However, the bombing in London this morning pretty much killed my sense of humor off. Having lived in Washington, DC, seeing the Pentagon with its one shiny new side twice a day on my way to work and home, I know that none of those people's lives will ever be the same, even if they weren't actually on the subway when it happened. Every day when I went to work on the Metro, I wondered if this would be the day that someone tried to blow it up. I would mentally calculate whether I would survive if a bomb went off in the next car, instead of the one I was in. (Answer: probably yes, if they were using regular small bombs, although you would be injured.) Every day I would hold my breath for a tiny second as we pulled into Union Station, knowing that would probably be the most likely spot for an attack--lots of people, famous building next to the Capitol, big empty underground area. And every day I would peer around as I walked through the station, wondering if the guy with the backpack was really going camping, or the woman pushing the baby stroller actually had a baby, or a stroller full of C4 explosives. That feeling never went away, no matter how many times I went to work and home perfectly safely. And now it's never going to go away for thousands and thousands of people in London just like me.