Jock Strap
Just when you think you have a plan...things change! We should all stop being so surprised by it at this point, shouldn't we?
So, the long-awaited, much-anticipated birth story is not coming today but next week, as part of a promotion that includes a link on a big corporate website that I'm 50 percent thrilled about and 50 percent living in desperate fear of because we all know what happens when the crazy, unwashed, illiterate, and somehow always angry and punctuationless masses get invited into blogland. Eek.
But since I halfway promised a good untold story for today, I'll try to deliver one anyway. Here's the story of why I for sure wasn't expecting to get an engagement ring on Christmas night.
(Oh, and here's a picture of the ring, since I never formally introduced you to it--"Hello, Lovely, meet the Internet. Internet, meet Lovely." It has twelve stones, and when I asked Simon if that meant he loved me all twelve months of the year or only for the month of December, he said he loved me for twelve days, that was it, so I better enjoy them while they lasted. Aw! I've had it for almost six months now, but it still feels brand new. Do you think maybe it's because I still haven't gotten it resized and have to wear it on my middle finger? Or because we're exactly as far into wedding planning today as we were six months ago? Wedding, schmedding.)
Anyway, it was the night we came home from the hospital, or maybe the night after, and as I was dragging my sore postpartum behind into bed, Simon pulled a little box from his bedside table and somewhat unceremoniously thrust it in my general direction. (And that's the only thing he'd be thrusting in my general direction for many weeks to come, ba-dum-dum.) Luckily for everyone involved, I opened it before I had a chance to imagine that it might be an engagement ring, a happy happenstance that saved us all from another round of blood and gore because it wasn't an engagement ring (boo!) but a sparkly little necklace (that I swear I'll get a good picture of sometime in the next six months, so help me god) (yay!).
The necklace itself is awesome and perfect, in part because it's anatomically symbolic of an experience I had recently undergone (wait till you see it!), so I was surprised to learn that this wasn't the necklace Simon had in mind when he went to pick one out. As he tells the story, he chanced in his travels to come across a jewelry store selling custom-made necklaces that spelled out a word or name in script ("but classy, not trashy," he assured me), and so somehow under the delusion that he should get me a "push present" (not that I'm complaining), he orders a necklace with the baby name he thinks we're 100 percent sure about but then learns the next day that I'm only 99 percent sure about because what if the kid comes out looking like a Reginald? What then?! Of course, by that point, he'd already commissioned the necklace with the name he thought we were locked into (let's say it's "Jack"), so he had to call up the store and put a hold on the order until we had an actual baby with an actual name (that would hopefully not be Reginald, no offense to any Reginalds out there).
Flash forward to December 14, with Wombat fresh from the oven and freshly named "Jack", and Simon steals a moment to call the jewelry store and tell them it's a go on the original order. Then flash forward a few more days, when Simon goes to pick up the necklace and gets a little surprise of his own: the necklace doesn't say "Jack" but "Jock." Hmm. Simon tells the guy behind the counter that there seems to have been a mistake. The guy tells him no mistake, J-O-C-K. Simon has him pull up the original order, where there's no question it's J-A-C-K. The clerk shrugs. Simon says, "Well, I can't take this home. My son is not named Jock." The clerk shrugs again, then offers Simon a very nice discount on a little, sparkly, awesome and perfect necklace that looks not unlike a diamond-encrusted baby's head coming out of a diamond encrusted vagina.
THE END!
are you telling us that wombats name is jack....? :)
No, it's definitely not Jack.
Or Jock, for that matter. :)
Awesome. Nothing says "I love you" like a bejeweled crowning necklace. :)
I was sitting here this whole story thinking to myself "But we already know his name, his name is Wombat." Even in the unlikely event the actual name were ever revealed I guess he will always be "Wombat".
My father's name is Reginald. My grandfather's, too.
Hmm.. can't wait to see the necklace. Ha!
Being married already, I suppose it would be a really BIG surprise if J pulled an engagement ring once (hello in there, get out, you are after all due today, I am getting rather impatient) I give birth. A necklace would be nice, but I am not expecting anything but kisses, an I love you and all eyes on the baby.
Love the ring - simple and elegant as they should be (at least if you're me).
I love the misspelling of the name...how horrifying to find that out on a custom-made item. I love the engagement ring and the story - it seems to fit you so well.
I know his real name!
And really do need to see this necklace.
I agree with the above: we need to see the necklace!