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Feb. 24th, 2004 08:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anigoI'm feeling a little less wigged out than I was yesterday. Thank you to all who humoured me and allowed me the few minutes of self pity.
So, on a brighter note, let's go for those three things to be grateful for, shall we?
1) I'm grateful that... IT'S SUNNY TODAY!!!!! Not blazing 30 degree sun or anything, but a cloudless deep blue sky none the less. And I suspect that's what I've been missing.
2) I'm grateful that today I'm babysitting the babysitters kids, because it gives The Kid something to do today (she's 7, by the way,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jynxgirl) and will allow me to *reallY* get some work done today.
3) I'm grateful for the way the sun rises on the same side of the house as my bedroom and this morning it's shining off the new hardwood floors and putting me in that romantic novel heroine type mood.
Speaking of romantic novel heroines...
I bought a book the other day that I just CAN'T put down, and for some reason, even though the story line has NOTHING to do with the situation anybody's going through right now, I've been wanting 9/10ths of my LJ friends to go out and buy it because it just reminds me so much of the mood here. It's called Watermelon and it's by Marian Keyes and I shall now read you a bit of an exerpt...
February the fiftheenth is a very special day for me. It is the day I gave birth to my first child. It is also the day my hsband left me. As he was present at the birth I can only assume the two events weren't entirely unrelated.
I knew I should have followed my instincts
I subscribed to the classical, or you might say, the traditional role fathers play in the birth of their children, which goes as follows.
Lock them in a corridor outside the delivery room. Allow them admittance at no time. Give them forty cigarettes and a lighter. Instruct them to pace to the end of the corridor. When they rech this happy position, instruct them to turn around and return from whence they came.
Repeat as necessary.
Conversations should be curtailed. They are allowed to exchange a few words with any other prospective father pacing alongside them.
"My first," (wry smile).
"Congrats...- My third," (rueful smile).
"Well done," (forced smile - is he trying to imply that he's more virile than me.)
Feelings do tend to run high around this time.
Or they are allowed to fling themselves on any doctor who emerges exhausted from th edelivery room, covered in blood up to his elbows, and gasp "Any news doctor??" To which the doctor might reply "Oh god no man! - Sure she's only three centimetres dilated." And your man will not knowingly, while understanding nothing other than the fact that there is still a fair bit of pacing to go.
He is also allowed to let a spasm of anguish pass over his face when he hears the agonies of his loved one within. And when it's all over and mother and child have been cleaned up and mother is in a clean nighdress and is lying back against the lacy pillows looking exhausted but joyful and the perfect infant is suckling at her prest, then, and only then, should the father be permitted to enter.
But no, I gave in to peer pressure and agreed to be all new age about it. I was very doubtful, I can tell you. I mean I wouldn't want any of my close friends or relatives at the removal of... say... my appendix. Humiliating! You'd be at such a disadvantage. All these people looking at you, at places of yourself you'd never even seen before, not even with a mirror. I didn't know what my large intestine looked like. And by the same token I didn't know what my cerfix looked like. And nor did I want to. But half the staff of St. Michael's hospital did.
I felt at a great disadvantage. That I wasn't doing myself justice.
To put it simply I was not looking my best. As I say, a humiliating kind of business.
I'd seen enough macho inarticulate lorry drivers on the telly, a tear in their eye, a catch in their voice, struggling to tell you about how being present at the birth of their child was the most pro... prof... pr... pr... deep! thing that ever happened to them. And I'd heard stories about beer-slugging jock rugby players who invited the entire team around to watch the video of their wife giving birth.
But then again, you'd wonder about their motives.
Anyway, James and I got all emotional about it and decided he should be there.
So that's the story of how he was there at the birth. The story of why and how he left me is a bit longer...
Rush out RIGHT NOW and buy this book. I'm about halfway through it and can't put it down.
So, on a brighter note, let's go for those three things to be grateful for, shall we?
1) I'm grateful that... IT'S SUNNY TODAY!!!!! Not blazing 30 degree sun or anything, but a cloudless deep blue sky none the less. And I suspect that's what I've been missing.
2) I'm grateful that today I'm babysitting the babysitters kids, because it gives The Kid something to do today (she's 7, by the way,
jynxgirl) and will allow me to *reallY* get some work done today.3) I'm grateful for the way the sun rises on the same side of the house as my bedroom and this morning it's shining off the new hardwood floors and putting me in that romantic novel heroine type mood.
Speaking of romantic novel heroines...
I bought a book the other day that I just CAN'T put down, and for some reason, even though the story line has NOTHING to do with the situation anybody's going through right now, I've been wanting 9/10ths of my LJ friends to go out and buy it because it just reminds me so much of the mood here. It's called Watermelon and it's by Marian Keyes and I shall now read you a bit of an exerpt...
February the fiftheenth is a very special day for me. It is the day I gave birth to my first child. It is also the day my hsband left me. As he was present at the birth I can only assume the two events weren't entirely unrelated.
I knew I should have followed my instincts
I subscribed to the classical, or you might say, the traditional role fathers play in the birth of their children, which goes as follows.
Lock them in a corridor outside the delivery room. Allow them admittance at no time. Give them forty cigarettes and a lighter. Instruct them to pace to the end of the corridor. When they rech this happy position, instruct them to turn around and return from whence they came.
Repeat as necessary.
Conversations should be curtailed. They are allowed to exchange a few words with any other prospective father pacing alongside them.
"My first," (wry smile).
"Congrats...- My third," (rueful smile).
"Well done," (forced smile - is he trying to imply that he's more virile than me.)
Feelings do tend to run high around this time.
Or they are allowed to fling themselves on any doctor who emerges exhausted from th edelivery room, covered in blood up to his elbows, and gasp "Any news doctor??" To which the doctor might reply "Oh god no man! - Sure she's only three centimetres dilated." And your man will not knowingly, while understanding nothing other than the fact that there is still a fair bit of pacing to go.
He is also allowed to let a spasm of anguish pass over his face when he hears the agonies of his loved one within. And when it's all over and mother and child have been cleaned up and mother is in a clean nighdress and is lying back against the lacy pillows looking exhausted but joyful and the perfect infant is suckling at her prest, then, and only then, should the father be permitted to enter.
But no, I gave in to peer pressure and agreed to be all new age about it. I was very doubtful, I can tell you. I mean I wouldn't want any of my close friends or relatives at the removal of... say... my appendix. Humiliating! You'd be at such a disadvantage. All these people looking at you, at places of yourself you'd never even seen before, not even with a mirror. I didn't know what my large intestine looked like. And by the same token I didn't know what my cerfix looked like. And nor did I want to. But half the staff of St. Michael's hospital did.
I felt at a great disadvantage. That I wasn't doing myself justice.
To put it simply I was not looking my best. As I say, a humiliating kind of business.
I'd seen enough macho inarticulate lorry drivers on the telly, a tear in their eye, a catch in their voice, struggling to tell you about how being present at the birth of their child was the most pro... prof... pr... pr... deep! thing that ever happened to them. And I'd heard stories about beer-slugging jock rugby players who invited the entire team around to watch the video of their wife giving birth.
But then again, you'd wonder about their motives.
Anyway, James and I got all emotional about it and decided he should be there.
So that's the story of how he was there at the birth. The story of why and how he left me is a bit longer...
Rush out RIGHT NOW and buy this book. I'm about halfway through it and can't put it down.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-02-24 08:50 am (UTC)(and no, I haven't had the opportunity to read any other of Marian Keyes' other books, but if this one is any indication of the rest of them, she's got a new devotee!)
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Date: 2004-02-24 08:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-24 08:54 am (UTC)