The Day The World Met Cricket (This Is NOT A Birth Story)

     Ten years ago on this very day, my darling Cricket was born.  Hooray!  Ten years.  Where does the time go?  Today will quite possibly be the busiest day, what with
taking cupcakes to his class and making a birthday cake (ice cream sandwich cake with caramels, just like he asked for, 'cause that's how I roll)
and prepping for his first football scrimmage of the season tonight,
and the dinner for nine I'm doing tomorrow...

I need a nap already.
 
     Just think, in 14 days, I'll do it all over again for Rooster's birthday...
and then there'll be the Great In-Between Birthday Party Bash (a name Rooster gave it because we always have a party for both of them somewhere in between the 14 days, and it stuck).

      Somewhere amidst all this ruckus of frosting and cheesy poofs and pointy hats and streamers is my birthday, nestled neatly in the middle of the Fourteen Days of Birthday Madness. HINT HINT

     I'm telling you all of this to say that I am NOT giving  you a blow-by-blow account of my three day labor and delivery of Cricket, fascinating though it may be.  Time is short.  However, I will tell you one teensy story from that day.

     Did I mention that I was in labor for three days?  THREE DAYS?  I got to know a few labor and delivery nurses during those 72 hours.  I really respect the work that they do.  It isn't easy dealing with a woman like me in one of the most uncomfortable (and that is the understatement of the year) situations of my life.  One of them could only aptly be described as a crabapple.  Crumudgeon doesn't do her justice.  She was an old, crabby, ate an under-ripe persimmon for breakfast piece of work.  In hindsight, I should have prayed for her.  But did I mention that I was in labor for THREE DAYS?  I was in a highly narcissistic mood.

     So out pops Cricket at the speed of light (dismiss the irony, I know), into the arms of a nurse to scrub him down, and as I lay back I realize who the nurse that got to touch the skin of my child for the very first time happened to be... It's none other than Nurse Ratchet.  I'm too tired to register my disappointment until she's swiping away, and what does Cricket do during his first moments on earth? 

     He pees in her face.

     And he's had his momma's back ever since.

     I love that boy.  Happy birthday Cricket.

Photo Courtesy of Juliet Belasyse-Smith.