PEOPLE!
Leah did it! She got almost 60 new people to like Pretty All True’s fan page in just two days! Please take a moment to check out Leah’s link . . . to a charity with which she works called Embrace Kids. Embrace Kids works to support the families of children with cancer and blood disorders. Give them a look!
That link will stay up for the rest of the month. It’s over there on the right.
Hi, Leah!
And Leah? My most heartfelt gratitude to you. You are amazing.
Back to business . . .
Portland has like 8 billion brewpubs.
Mark and I both enjoy brewpubs. And so chances are, if we’re headed out to dinner with the girls, we are headed out to a brewpub. Where we each have a beer.
If we have more than one beer with dinner, here is what happens next . . .
“So this is excellent parenting. Now who is going to drive us home? The two of you are all drunk.”
That’s Maj, by the way. Duh.
So we are getting organized to go out to dinner the other night, and the girls are discussing the plan as they pull on their coats by the front door.
Kallan asks, “Where are we going, Maj?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere for pizza. A brewpub, probably.”
Kallan laughs, “We always go to brewpubs when we go out to dinner, Maj.”
Maj is thoughtful, “The good thing, though? As long as Mother is drinking a beer with dinner? We know she’s not pregnant.”
Snort!
“What are you talking about? Mom’s not having any more babies.”
Maj pulls on her boots, “I know that’s what she says, but if she ever goes out to dinner and does not order a beer? You’ll know something’s up. I like to keep an eye on her, because we do not need any more sisters or brothers.”
I step into the front hallway, “No more babies for me, ladies.”
Kallan hugs me, “I know that, Mom. You’re too old to have any more babies.”
I laugh, “OK, I am not going to discuss whether or not I am too old to have more babies. I will just assure you that I am done. The two of you are all I need.”
“Although,” I continue, “You do know your grandma was about my age when she had my youngest sister, right?”
Kallan stares at me, “Really? That’s crazy!”
“Yes, I believe that’s what I said at the time. She didn’t listen to me.”
Ahem.
Maj is all serious, “You are not supposed to have a baby when you are old. The baby will be defective.”
“Yes, well . . . you might want to take that up with your aunt.”
Snort!
Maj stands up and stomps her feet to get her boots how she likes them, “So are you having a beer with dinner?”
“I am sure that I will.”
“OK, then. You’re not pregnant.”
“Good to know, Maj.”
Maj is all authoritative, “Because if you drink any alcohol while you are pregnant, the baby is born defective.”
I start to speak, “Your Grandma . . .”
Hmmmm.
I let my sentence trail off.
I decide to let Maj’s statement stand.
No reason to tell the story of a copper-haired woman up late with her husband and the midwives the night before she is to give birth. Playing cards and drinking and laughing as she times the contractions and waits for her baby to be born. Waits for her daughter to be born.
Waits for me.
I think about that copper-haired laughing woman often.
Think about that evening as she waited.
As she laughed and played and drank and talked.
Waited for her life to start.
Waited for this other life to start.
I wonder what she felt when she held her daughter for the first time.
Her second daughter.
The first to be hers.
I wonder what she hoped.
What she dreamed.
I wonder about that moment.
That beginning.
The first fingertip against my skin.
So much that came after.
I hope that first moment was magic.
Sigh.
Maj is still talking, “ . . . and then you would be all defective. So that’s lucky.”
Wait . . . what?
But then Mark joins us at the door, and he and the girls walk ahead and out to the car.
The conversation is over.
I trail behind for a moment . . . thinking of mothers and babies and dreams and harm and choices.
My mother told me recently that when she looks at photos of my daughters, they blur into a million other memories and images. My daughters look like her children. Look like her memories of herself as a child. Look like photos she has in albums of her relatives as children. Look like my sisters’ children.
Look like me.
Yes.
I will have that beer.
There you go.. being all fabulous again. I start reading a post thinking it’s one way & then snatch the rug out from underneath me. You’d think by now I wouldn’t be caught so off guard with this.
I wonder if all parents contemplate their life’s choices or their parents choices. How everything can change with one choice.
Natalie -
I am always fabulous!
But I know what you mean . . . I have been a loon for the past few days.
And then today . . . different and softer.
I like to mix it up here on Pretty All True.
I have so mentioned that before.
Snort!
Wow. It’s amazing how many more things are “gray” with age. Perceptually, I mean.
I had so many opinions about right and wrong when I was young. Vehemently defended opinions. I. was. so. right.
Until I got older. Saw some things. Experienced some things. Had choices to make. Then I wasn’t so right anymore.
*sigh*
Couldn’t agree more.
Life used to be black & white. Always. There was black. There was white. One or the other.
Now? After I’ve lived a little, made choices both good & bad. I realize there is a whole lot of gray. That really? Life is more gray than anything else.
Natalie -
And I think that is such a good thing.
Scary, but good.
Good to get to a place where gray is OK.
Gray is where life is really lived.
Ms WTH -
It is so fabulous to be right and confident in your rightness.
I love that feeling.
But better?
Is to have have lived and appreciated that life is not as simple and black and white as you imagined.
It is better to be able to see things from a perspective that is not your own.
Far better.
I think.
I think your writing is getting better and better! I drank while pregnant with my first. I had no idea I was pregnant…hmmmm…that explains a lot!
Lynn -
That is a lovely compliment.
Thank you so very much for that.
Life is filled with gray areas . . . amongst them?
The areas that surround things we don’t know.
Lots of gray.
Much love, babe.
We are all a little defective, oui?
Yes.
Exactly.
I shall have a celebratory Beer tonight!
Leah -
A well-deserved celebration!
You are awesome!
Thank you!
I fully support you being pregnant in your old age. Drinking however? Is often the better option!
Snort!
I have had just the right amount of pregnancy in my life.
Done with that.
Cheers!
There is a picture of my mother and her OB/Gyn sitting on her hospital bed, with the new me in a bassinette at their feet.
They are each smoking a cigarette.
And me? Now?
I’m (pretty all) fine.
…twitch…twitch…
Isn’t it strange how much the rules have changed?
Can you imagine such a photo being taken in a hospital today?
Just the thought makes me giggle.
Much love, twitchy you.
Much love.
For a lot of us, our kids won’t have to wonder what we thought about when they were born. Or what we thought about when they were little. Blogging has left a permanent imprint of our psyche for the world at large, as well as our children to witness.
For most of us, I think that’s an awesome thing. Now, excuse me, I need to write another letter to my daughter. It’s time.
I do sometimes think about that.
How much I would love to have my mother’s written words from the time in our lives together.
I have her words now, but it’s 44 years later.
Lovely, but not the same.
Go write that letter to your daughter.
She will treasure it.
I love how Maj has appointed herself guardian and monitor of your womb.
A womb cop.
Too bad her talents are wasted on you. Does she realize that while she is all busy monitoring the womb of a woman who has no intention of using again, there are thousands of women all over the country who keep popping out babies like they’re Louis Vuitton handbags?
The womb cop’s services are needed elsewhere.
God forbid she ever becomes a cop for real though. I am not ready to live in a police state.
I also think it’s interesting how she seems so distrustful of you, yet she never doubts for one second that if you were pregnant? You simply would not drink.
So much trust in that small assumption.
Maj seems to have focused most of her policing energy on her immediate family. She sees that other people are fucking up, but there is only so much she can do. So she just tries to keep her own people under control.
Snort!
Maj should NOT become a police officer . . . that would be very very bad for speeders and scofflaws of all sorts. She would stand at the end of our driveway and give me a ticket every time I left the house. Cellphone use, seat-belt violations, improper mirror placement, excessive tire wear . . . I would be penniless and without a driver’s license in no time at all.
And that last thing you said?
That always kills me.
Maj is so distrustful over the little things, but the big things?
She has complete faith.
She trusts me.
She tests me endlessly, but when it comes down to it?
She trusts me.
Leah gets shit done. She reminds me of Julie.
Snort!
I was all done. My youngest was born when his sisters were 23 and 20. Life is very gray. But my son is lovely. I keep thinking maybe well try for a brother. Then his sister says things like she did not 20 minutes ago: this summer, they begin trying for a baby. Eeek!
Hey, you.
Yes, my youngest sister was born into a different relationship and a different life.
I had already moved out of the house when my mother got pregnant.
A weird time.
I have never been that close to my youngest sister . . . different paths.
She is lovely, but we have lived completely different lives.
As for you being pregnant as you also become a grandma?
Hee hee!
No not pregnant Now! He is 3 and a half. My grandmother was pregnant at my mom’s wedding. My mum in law has a baby sister similiarly decades younger My dad was the late baby in his family. But these examples are all pre-pill.
My oldest had moved out and back and away again before the baby brother was even thought of.
Your family is all filled with families started up again after the oldest children move out!
What’s up with that?
That’s kind of awesome.
My mother drank and smoked through 5 pregnancies. We are not mentally defective.
However for my 2 younger sisters? When she was a full on alcoholic? Possibly some congenital fallout.
Renee -
No argument from me about the damage that smoking and drinking can do to an unborn child.
No argument.
I do think it’s odd how the world has changed, though.
And how people tend to see things in black and white . . . when they have no real experience with the matter at hand.
Yeah.
wow Maj must be exhausted with all her self assigned duties.
I remember not long ago when my marriage was ending in a mess, my son seemed to think he had to monitor everything. He later told me he thought I needed the help. It was then that I realized how out of control with grief I was.
Send Maj over here. I think I need the supervision hee hee
that is all
Amy -
Maj has always been like this. Always.
It is sometimes difficult for me to accept, as it is hard to read anything but judgment into her worries and mistrust.
But Maj is Maj, and Maj has always been like this.
Right from the start.
No matter how hard I work to get it right.
Really.
Kris
I think Maj is exactly who she is supposed to be.
And you already have it right.
“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.”
Sam Keen
maybe this is true here?
that is all
I have always said that Maj is Maj.
I am all tangled up in love for that girl.
She is perfect in her quirkiness.
And I love her as she is.
Thank you.
That is all.
OMG, drinking and playing cards as she timed her contractions. Can you imagine someone reading this right and becoming completely apoplectic over that??? It’s not like the alcohol is going to harm the baby as it comes through the birth canal. What else is there to do but drink and play cards and living it up? Clearly it did you no harm, right???
Someone who reads this post and becomes “completely apoplectic?”
That person does not know enough about our very recent past. Does not know that there was a time not so very long ago when things were different. When people smoked and drank and did not give it a second thought. Even during pregnancy. That said? I did not say that my mother drank throughout her pregnancy.
As you rightfully pointed out, I only said that she drank the night before I arrived.
And here I am.
Me.
Unharmed by that night.
Completely.