Quick Update

Sorry for the extended absence -- everyone here at the Crooked House has been suffering from something that started as a head cold and has now turned into a dramatic barking chest cough. Of course, it doesn't seem to affect Luke much. Right now he's leaping around the living room -- while I write this from a reclining position on the sofa. We're hoping none of us require medical attention anytime soon as our family doctor has a six week wait and the local hospital is operating on a skeleton staff due to the Norwalk virus. It's that time of year. Also: on Wednesday, my 400th birthday, I spent the day imagining I was about to have a pulmonary embolism at any moment. Combine emerging varicose veins, aching legs, a recurrent sharp pain in the ribs, and google and what do you have? Hysteria. A big thank you to all who sent birthday wishes and messages. You momentarily diverted me from thoughts of imminent death.

In other, much happier news, I had the twenty week ultrasound last Monday and we are, apparently, expecting a girl. "Le choix du roi" said another mother at Luke's gymnastics class a few days later -- and then she went on to tell me that the ultrasound specialist had told her that her son was a girl. Another mom piped up with the same story. I went and dropped seventy dollars on pink baby clothes anyway.

My burgeoning belly and the related subject of where we all come from are increasingly becoming  topics of great interest to Luke. Two recent exchanges:

Luke: Whose tummy were you in, Mommy?
Steph: I was in Gramma's tummy.
Luke: Did Gramma have any other babies?
Steph: Yes, she had Uncle Denny, too. She had two babies.
Luke: Oh. But what about Max and River? [his cousins]
Steph: Max and River were in Auntie Caro's tummy. They're Auntie Caro and Uncle Denny's babies.
Luke: No. They're Gramma's babies!
Steph: No. They're Auntie Caro's.
Luke: I don't think so, Mommy.
Steph: Well, they are.
Luke: But Gramma takes care of them!

Luke: When was Bella [one of our cats] born?
Steph: Oh, maybe two years before you were.
Luke: Was she in your tummy, too?

Also, the child has begun to tell completely nonsensical knock-knock jokes at the slightest provocation. Like this:

Luke: Knock knock!
Steph: Who's there?
Luke: Light.
Steph: Light who?
Luke: Oh, Light shines and then it goes ring around the rosie and it falls right down!

He then laughs so uproariously at his own joke that his doting parents can't help laughing, too. Which encourages him to tell another one. And thus are marginal stand-up comedians born through the ages.

Comments

[babelbabe]

i have taken up knitting, and now - whoo hoo! I can knit the new baby something! Yay!

Hope your birthday was happy, and you had yummy cake : )

[Stephany Aulenback]

Babelbabe, you're too sweet. And amazing. I don't know how you have time to turn around -- and now you're knitting.

We had TWO kinds of yummy cake, since this old, fat lady is now eating for TWO.

[Lisa Peet]

Happy belated birthday! You don't look a day over 399.

[Maud]

Oh, Steph, happy belated birthday! I'm so sorry you spent it filled with heart attack anxiety, but so glad you have armfuls (armsful?) of pink baby clothes.

[Stephany Aulenback]

Thanks you guys.

And I don't FEEL a day over 399, lp.

Maud, I just washed them all. I should've taken a picture of them when I went to take them out of the washing machine -- so PINK just looking at the sodden mass could cause diabetes.