August 6th, 2007 by The Bosphorus
Nine years ago, when October was born at U.T. Hospital, things were really different. I hadn’t even begun to see this different life that I’m only now beginning to understand how to love and appreciate. You know, be thankful for.
The Missus called me from the obgyn’s office and said it’s TIME. It’s time, I thought, TIME. I’ve got to go!
Back then I had a champagne colored Toyota Cressida that the Missus’s step-father had sold me for $500. That was every penny of the money I got from an insurance settlement due to a fire that melted a Millenium Falcon, an AT,TT (one of the dinosaur looking walkers), an X-Wing and sundry action figures. $500 was good money for this very played with collection, let me tell you. That was some bolt of lightning that struck Mom & Dad’s storage shed. So here I go in the $500 Champagne bottle of Cressida straight out of the 4th and Gill neighborhood headed for the hospital and some kind of experience Obi Wan never talked about in Star Wars.
Evidently the Missus’s amniotic fluids were gone, so she had to deliver right then. I remember the nurses sent me out when the anesthesiologist came to numb her up. I went down and smoked a cigarette. When I came back up the Missus looked like she could shoot lasers out of her eyeballs. The epidural had only numbed half of her. I think she couldn’t feel her left leg, but the right was froggy as ever. I went and smoked another cigarette.
Obviously all went well. The Missus ate roast beef afterwards and eventually we drove home in the $500 Cressida. The biggest understatement of the year would be to say we weren’t prepared for the coming days. Our lives moved quicker than a Harry Potter action scene and maybe I’ll tell you about that some other day.
Right now all the kids are waking up and I want to wish a Happy Birthday to my October.
I love you, October.
August 6th, 2007 at 7:51 am
Thanks Dad! When are we going to open
presents?
August 6th, 2007 at 8:08 am
ahh … i must be emotional today because i am all teary now.
happy day, happy day october! hope 9 treats you great!
August 6th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Man, I remember that. Good times, good times.
I think it was one of the reasons theres 5 years between MastaG and Pigpen…
August 6th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Wow! Transmogrified action figures (and a transmogrified life, too)!
Happy Birthday, October. (We always wait until after dinner to open our presents).
August 6th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Happy Birthday October!
August 6th, 2007 at 10:55 am
We threatened to make Oct. wait till after dinner for her presents, but we cut her some slack.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Oh wow, 9! The fun is just beginning October. Happy, happy day!
August 6th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Happy Birthday October!
August 6th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Happy birthday! If I were close enough, I’d bring you a couple (like, more than one) chocolate donuts on the sly so you could enjoy them without trying to bribe your way to them! In fact- AT, take care of that for me.
August 6th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Happy Birthday October! Enjoy your last year in the single digits…next year begins the double digits :)
August 6th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
I remember when October was first born, she was as red as a tomato. And she passed gas A LOT.
The first night home from the hospital, she cried and cried and cried. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong - she was fed and changed. What more could a baby want, right? In the end, we figured out that she was cold.
Everything with October was, and is, a learning experience.
August 6th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
You mean they don’t shiver when they’re cold? Holy cow, if I had a baby I’m sure it would never see its first birthday.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Happy Birthday to you!!
Next year it’s the big One OH!!