Suckling

Unlike Nature, I adore a vacuum.

(The physical vortex of sucking nothingness, not the Hoover, that is.)

I do like going out and doing things and sucking all the somethingness out of the marrow of life, but if left to my own devices I’m more likely as not to spend my leisure hours lounging on a divan watching through half-closed eyes at the curtains fluttering at the windows. (I’m reading Wharton and would very much like a window-view divan, perhaps in a summer rental palace on some side canal in Venice. I’m not picky.)

Last weekend was supposed to have been our first completely unscheduled weekend in FOREVER, and I was so looking forward to the vast stretch of sucking nothingness, but then Simon wanted to take Wombat rock climbing and I scheduled a vet appointment for the World’s Dearest Yet Grossest Cat and some friends’ band was playing up in Petaluma and we finally made a date with Miranda to take some baby gear off her hands (by which I mean she was incredibly generous and just gave us a bouncy seat and pumping supplies, just because she’s nice) and hey, since we we’re in the area, why not spend the afternoon walking around a farm even though walking anywhere for any length of time is decidedly contrary to the main goal of this week, which shifted 180 degrees from “Walk the Baby Out” to “Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Uterus” when we found out on our surprise visit to L&D triage on Friday afternoon that my hospital’s nurses would be on strike this Tuesday through Saturday, so if I wanted my labor and delivery attended by people who actually work there and are actually trained in labor in delivery (preferable, thanks!), I should do whatever was in my power to keep the baby in until at least July 8. Let us try not to linger on the fact that I’ve been paying extra for the expensive health insurance since December specifically because I wanted to give birth at this hospital with this staff of nurses instead of whatever random union-busting scabs are sent to fill their place. I do not want my baby delivered by scabs. (Scabs!) Not even if they wear matching vest-knickers-cap sets like the scab paperboys in Newsies. Not even then. (I might bend a little if I’m promised a choreographed song and dance routine, but only maybe and only so long as it’s after I get my epidural.)

Speaking of the hospital, there was a dangling thread in that last post, when I said the second best thing about the hospital tour was showing Wombat the fresh baby in the nursery. I didn’t tell you what the first best thing was. It was this:

The hospital has twenty-four delivery rooms, and the one our tour guide led our group into was number 19, the room where we finally met Wombat on the outside. He was born RIGHT THERE!

We couldn’t help but announce to the group that This was where This was born, and then Wombat, from atop Simon’s shoulders, gazed down upon the crowd and approximated a royal wave with appropriately humble aplomb. Three and a half years, just like that. Whoa.

The tour guide said the only thing she didn’t like about this room was the mirror directly across from the bed. Word, sister. WORD.

That said, I wouldn’t mind meeting Mompth in the same room, just for the sake of symmetry. I bet I could fool the scab nurses into letting me choose my room, since it’s possible I’ll know more about how this L&D ward runs than they do. (Ugh.)

This was supposed to be a post of catch-up on our weekend activities over the last month or so, but now I’m too far off the rails to make it back. Tomorrow is another day (for you to COME LOOK AT MY THREE-HOUR VACATION SLIDESHOOOOOOW), so that will have to do.

One more thing, so as not to leave anyone hanging after this post: I mentioned that we were in L&D triage on Friday afternoon, but it was just a non-emergency visit to confirm Mompth’s head is pointed toward the exit, since, sagging aside, he’s still floating around high enough that my doctor just wanted to make extra sure we were good to go should anything actually decide to be good and go in the next few weeks. (He’s right where he should be.) Nine more days, give and take. NINE MORE DAYS.