Old News, Good News

Because I did such a totally awesome job planning out every aspect of my post-baby life, I'm just now getting around to sending birth announcements for my also totally awesomely planned child, who was born in December, i.e., last year, almost two months ago, during a completely different presidential administration, etc. I almost didn't bother--what are we announcing? everyone already knows he's here*--but then I went ahead and ordered the cards anyway. I figure that, crazy octuplet lady aside, a person only has so many kids and, dammit, I am going to celebrate at least one of mine.

The next problem was deciding how many to order. At almost two bucks a pop(!), I for sure wasn't going to spring for the extra-large crate, but I still needed to decide between the Modest order and the Very Modest order. (That's how Simon describes our wedding plans when people ask: we're trying to decide whether we want it to be tiny or very tiny.)

So I started making a list and, speaking of weddings, you'd think I was composing a $500/head invite list by the way I agonized over which lucky people I would grace with a 5x5 card announcing an old-news birth. In the end, I caved and ordered enough to make my bank account blanch, but the whole issue really did come down to a fantasy near and dear to my heart, which was finally having my very own child displayed on the refrigerators of friends and family across the country and around the world. I LOVE other people's birth announcements and am always proud to display them for my visitors well past their expiration dates (there's something about not yet having a child of her own that will make a girl take false ownership of other people's darling babies any way she can), and I know it's a dumb reason to spend all that money on cards and envelopes and stamps, but I just couldn't let go of the idea of my own darling baby holding a place of honor on other people's fridges. I can only hope those people are at least a fraction as proud to show him off as I am.

And speaking of friends and people I'm proud to know, last Sunday we met the SF gang for brunch to celebrate Holly's birthday, and there are no words to describe how wonderful it was to introduce Wombat to this particular batch of Aunties and Uncles and to have them be so visibly excited to meet him. They're all people I wouldn't know if not for this blog, so in a way it felt like passing him around the table from lap to lap was also passing him around the Internet, from laptop to laptop (har). (That said, I hope you don't mind that they're all getting birth announcements and the rest of you aren't.)

I guess what I mean to say (in this too-brief, disjointed entry) is: Thanks, Internet, for being a part of this--all of this. I know the baby is special all by himself, but there's definitely something extra special about being able to share him with so many Aunties and Uncles who care about him. If I had but stamps and time...

Holly and Moose. Photo by Kristin

*Actually, not everyone who should know about the birth does know. Old skool readers will remember my awesome former landlord/surrogate father and George the Jockey, and for all the times I thought of stopping by the old homestead to show off my belly, I never quite made it. The other two people who don't know and really, really should are my two best pals from high school, B and B. I haven't been in contact with either of them for years (regrets, regrets), and boy are they going to freak when they get the email that starts with the lines "Long time no talk! Any idea how long?" and ends with a picture of my hugely pregnant self and then one of my old-news baby boy.

wrote Leah at 6:37 AM | Comments (10)