Category Archives: expecting

& one down

Today officially marks one whole trip around the sun where this bloggy space has been a thing. And you totally care.

You might be spending this weekend with your family, which means you’re reading this a few days from now, after the Christmas and New Year’s rush has died down, or you’re on your thirteenth glass of eggnog (out of the adult punch bowl) and taking a break from quality time to surf the internet while hiding in your coat closet and trying not to ralph on Aunt Bernice’s peacoat. In either case, hope your holidays are wonderful.

This time last year, we were just telling our families about their impending doom grandparenthood.

squatch

The release date got moved up to a weekend with a better box office draw.

Now we have a little man who’s about ready to get a job and start contributing to our fast-paced and irresponsible lifestyle.

We don't call him Squatch for nothin.

We don’t call him Squatch for nothin.

In between I wrote a lot of pointless garbage, moved, and “met” some cool folks in the Bloggy-verse. Some I’ve struck up conversations, shared ideas, or arranged marriages with. Others I’ve stalked from afar and have yet to engage in a discourse. But it shall happen. I haven’t been able to take this bloggy thing as seriously as some, but it’s still a thing. And now it’s a year-old thing.

Squatch has made some new friends, too. He’s got a bat:

Totally not creepy.

Totally not creepy.

And Captain America:

Thanks, DorkDaddy!

Thanks, DorkDaddy!

And his best buddy Jack:

Photo stolen from our friend Val.

Photo stolen from our friend Val.

So what’s going to come in the year ahead? Well, I’ll probably talk about planning a one-year-old’s birthday with class and dignity (note to self: jungle animal petting zoo—this has to be a thing). There will be teeth and varying degrees of mobility, and likely some sort of talking splashed in there by this time next year. You can keep up-to-date with all of it on the “& Squatch Makes Three Special Fun-Time Facebook Page” (like it, Hipster) or through the Squatchiest feed on the Twitter. In fact, please do. I have few followers and even fewer page likes. It’s pathetic. Don’t let me be that kid. Come sit at my internet lunch table.

As a preemptive token of our gratitude, Squatch wanted me to pass along a holiday message:

Doesn’t that just give you the warm fuzzies deep down in your gut?

Thanks for a good year, blog friends. Here’s hoping for another.

& the reckoning: the birth story, part 4

All right, I’ve been back four days now and there’s no excuse for you having missed all this. But just in case you’ve been sitting around with your proverbial head up your proverbial ass (or you actually had something to do this long weekend), here’s Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Go catch up, show off.

More from Squatch:

I really don’t have much to say because the good stuff already happened. I did neglect to mention that it was really messy. We’re talking total carnage here. I wouldn’t recommend it. But I’m trying to delay bedtime a little while, so I’ll give you the rest of the story.

Squatch had fun telling this story. Who cares if you liked it?

After my eviction, everyone had a really long day. I’m pretty sure Mommy and Daddy didn’t sleep, and they took it out on me by waking me up constantly to eat. Some people just aren’t happy unless you’re not happy, I’m telling you. It may have also had something to do with the heat waving, the water being brown*, and the room being hot**.

*Notes from Daddy: A water main broke outside the hospital and all the hot water was dirty.
**The air conditioner broke. Karli said earlier in the year, “My biggest worry is that I’ll have Squatch during a heat wave and the air conditioning will go out.” Well, wish granted. Way to jinx it.

I was just starting to get used to the outside when they came and stuck me in a tanning bed because I guess they’re trying to breed the next cast of Jersey Shore at that hospital. I don’t think it’ll work, though. I’m not Italian, not from Jersey, and I don’t think my neck could support hair lathered in that much Crisco.

I ended up spending most of my time in that bed. Because our room was hot, we had to keep the door open in order not to roast ourselves. That meant I got to hear a lot of our neighbors across the hall.

Boy were these people winners. They had a girl with them who I assume got kicked out a little after I did. Her name was ——–*, which is one of the stupidest possible names next to ———–*. They’re not even actual names, for crying out loud. Poor kid never had a chance. I’m pretty sure the only time she got fed or her diaper changed was when the women with the needles came and took care of her.

*Note from Daddy: I censored the kid because I didn’t want to offend anyone who might think those are pretty names. I pity you, but I don’t want to offend you.

Finally, after a few extra months of hell, they let us leave. Which terrified the crap out of me. Would you want to go home with the woman who just forced you out of her belly and the dummy who drove her? Yeah, me neither.

So far, though, they seem to be doing okay. I’m still alive, which is a good sign, and they haven’t evicted me from here yet. It’s not as uterus-y as I’d like, and they don’t hold me nearly enough, but I think I’ll keep them. As long as they let me stay up whenever I want.

& it hits the fan: the birth story, part 3

If you’re just realizing that this blog isn’t dead and haven’t kept up, you can read Part 1 and Part 2. Or just go there and read them to jack up my page views. Which mean nothing, really. It’s like the points on Whose Line.

Anyway, here’s Squatch:

He’s here! And no hard feelings, really.

So suddenly, through no fault of my own, I’m getting shoved—shoved!out of Mommy’s belly. Through all the turning and position changes, even my best friend, Placenta, turned against me. The cord got wrapped around my neck twice and my stomach once. Think about that—my food source suddenly went Anaconda on me. How would you like it if your hamburger decided to squeeze you like youwere lunch. Where were Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube when you need them*?

*Note from Daddy: I knew we shouldn’t have watched so much TV during pregnancy. Kid’s already hooked.

After about four-and-a-half months* of laying around in the hospital, Mommy was suddenly on her back and pushing me out. We were not starting this relationship on the right foot.

*Note from Daddy: 16 hours—about four of which were spent stuck at 9 centimeters before she finally gave in to ask for the epidural.

A little ways in, I heard Mommy throw up. It was like the old days again. The first trimester days. From what I could hear, I gather that she threw up on someone, but not Daddy*. Too bad, because that would’ve been pretty funny. After that, though, she started to push harder. And harder. And then it got really bright and really cold for a second before it went dark again.

*Note from Daddy: It was her favorite nurse—the one who actually let her move around into different positions to move things along. She felt really bad about that.

Then someone stuck something to my head and started pulling. That was totally not cool. It’s one thing for Mommy to try to evict me, but she had to go and call in the fuzz. She started pushing again, and the guy started pulling and I shot out of there like a rocket. The guy even said “Uh oh” as I came popping out—not what you want to hear from the guy who’s supposed to be catching you. But there I was, about a day* after Mommy started throwing me out, and I was homeless.

*Note from Daddy: Half an hour. I have a feeling he’ll have trouble with that whole time thing.

Not just homeless, either. The catcher guy unwrapped the cord from me, then Daddy cut it—CUT IT!so I was foodless, too! These are supposed to be my parents, folks. One kicks me out, and the other literally cuts me off. Not winning any Parent-of-the-Year awards, these two.

All I can remember after that was that it was so cold and they started pulling on me and poking me and rolling me around and I was so, so mad. I can honestly say it was the worst day of my life up to that point.

At this point, I think I’ll interject that this was one of the most surreal moments of my life, and mostly thanks to this blog. It made my son’s birth a lot like meeting a celebrity—someone I’ve talked about and know all this stuff about but have never actually met, then suddenly I’m face-to-face with him. And the fact that all these other people also knew who he was only added to the effect that I was meeting someone famous. It was pretty incredible.

Of course, I’ve never really met someone actually famous, so I have nothing to compare it to.

& it’s go time: the birth story, part 2

You didn’t think I’d come back this soon, did you? I can change, I promise. Just give me a chance.

In case you didn’t check in yesterday (and who could blame you?), you can read Part 1. Go ahead, Squatch will wait. He’s a baby; he’s got nothing but time.

Caught up? Good. Here’s Squatch:

By the time I woke up, we were at the hospital, and it was even colder in there. I was suddenly aware that I was ass-end up and Mommy’s belly kept squeezing. We kept getting moved from one place to another and people kept asking Mommy questions. I could tell Daddy was there, too, because he’d say something stupid every once in a while and Mommy would hit him.

Squatch gets animated when he tells a story.

Eventually, Mommy got laid down. Daddy was making lots of phone calls. I was mostly trying not to freak out about the fact that my own Mommy was trying to evict me. You think you know a woman, you share food and oxygen, then. . . . Well, I guess I’ll have a good starting place for therapy one day.There were a whole lot of boring parts after that. We sat around for about 37 years. A guy kept coming in every little bit to ask if Mommy wanted something. An epic squirrel, I think. It must not have been that epic, because Mommy kept saying no. She asked if she could get up, and he told her no, but he did let the rest of the juice out of Mommy’s belly so I was nice and cold. Jerk.

After the first few weeks of laying around in the freezing cold, somebody told Mommy she could move around, as long as she didn’t get out of bed. When she started moving around, her belly started squeezing me tighter and Mommy started moaning a lot. Then Daddy would say something stupid, and Mommy and I both told him to shut up. Daddy can be a dummy sometimes.

A couple weeks later, Aunt April came by to keep us company. The doctor kept coming in and finally Mommy said she wanted the epic squirrel. I never got to see it, but it made Mommy relax a little bit. That’s when the fun started. Well, fun for Mommy. It was horrible and painful for me. More for therapy.

& a tale from the inside: the birth story, part 1

You haven’t seen me for a while. Sorry about that. I’ve had every good intention of bringing updates, but got a little sidetracked with moving and a new job and the start of the school year. Oh yeah, and a baby.

I promised the birth story, and I haven’t delivered. That’s mostly because my perspective on the birth would be kind of pointless. I wasn’t involved. My participation level mostly consisted of saying things like “Breathe” and “Do you want more ice chips?” I wouldn’t say I was useless, but—okay, I was useless. So I was going to have Karli help. Only she’s been busy, too, with the moving and the baby and she apparently has an “overgrown, hairy manchild” to take care of that I apparently haven’t met. Which means we weren’t getting too far on this birth story thing.

Then I realized—there was someone else involved in this whole thing, too. And, as of Tuesday, he turned two months old. Time to start pulling your weight, kid. Without further ado, here’s the birth story, as told by Squatch.

It all started with that damn Mexican food. We all I decided to go get some enchiladas for dinner, served just the way I like them: Placenta*-style. I’m getting a little mouth-watery just thinking about it now. It’s hard to find good cooking these days.

*Miss you, Homie. R.I.P.

Anyway, it wasn’t long after I got done that things started getting really tight. It wasn’t like the normal times, where the part behind my leg would stiffen up, then the part under my elbow. It was the whole thing, squeezing me. I could tell Mommy was feeling it, too, because she popped about 73 of those candies that made her stomach feel tingly on my butt, only those didn’t help. She was telling Daddy that her stomach didn’t feel so good, and we tried to sleep. It was not a good night.

Author photo


The next morning, Mommy decided to stay home from work, which I couldn’t have agreed with more. The Mexican food was still making Mommy’s belly squeeze me, and it was starting to make a pattern. I probably could’ve set my watch by it. If I had a watch. And knew what a watch was.

Sometime around when we usually ate some crackers, but not quite when we would go to lunch, Mommy decided to get out of bed and walk for some reason. She went to the kitchen to talk to Daddy. As we were walking, I could tell something wasn’t quite right. Something was happening.

“I think—*” Mommy said, and just then it got really cold. I dropped a little bit. I heard Mommy say, “I think my water broke,” and it was all I could do not to scream for a repairman to fix it. Because whatever that meant, it wasn’t turning out well for me.

*Daddy’s note: She was about to tell me, “I think I might tell [my boss] that I’ll try to be in for work this afternoon.” Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. It’s all in the timing.

Even though I was flailing, upside-down, in a growing pool of coldness, Mommy decided to take a shower. And shave her legs. And eat something, but I was too scared to realize what it was. After about an hour, we got in the car.

I don’t know what it is about that thing, but it always makes me fall asleep. Every damn time, without fail.

But here we were, my life in certain jeopardy, Mommy’s belly squeezing the poo out of me, and I drift off to sleep. If only I knew what was ahead, maybe I could’ve done something to save myself.

Till next time, Squatch fans!