You Always Know Just What To Say

It seems to me that if you're going to land on your parent's doorstep and invade their home with toddlers and things, then there are a few moral obligations involved. One of those is that if you're pregnant, and due around or about the birthday of one of those parents, you should make every effort to produce the child on said birthday. It's only polite.

So early morning hours on The Day I've been awake for about four hours; Kirk has been blissfully asleep. This is the third child so there's nothing new here, no reason to get everyone all worked up until it's the right time. Besides, I hate fuss and bother and would rather have a few peaceful if painful hours at home than hang about in a university hospital while sleep deprived interns try and remember which is the business end of things.

I probably should have recognized that Kirk wasn't going to spring awake fully cognizant though - so it was a leetle too clever to wake him up with

'Honey, we need to get Dad's birthday present.' To which he answered: 'What?!? We're not going shopping!' beat. . . beat. . . 'hey...'

Quick note to sleep-deprived interns: if a woman comes into your hospital in full labor but in complete control of her own senses and talking logically and calmly do not treat her as an idiot. Further, if she assures you that this is her third child, and that the second child arrived fairly quickly and easily on the scene, do not then pat her on the head and inform her you're off to get a bit of sleep, you'll check back later. Finally, when the baby arrives thirty minutes later, without your help, do not scold said woman for not waking you up. That is, don't do this if you wish to maintain your own ability to procreate. There are many sharp, sterile instruments in a hospital, and the nurses would have helped me.

Also, because I have a deep, wide evil streak (actually, I'm probably mostly evil with narrow strips of reasonably good on the sides as window dressing), I am happy to say that the next day I walked down to the 'here's the lecture for two-year-olds on how to be a good mommy in three easy steps' wearing jean shorts (yes, zipped) and sat crosslegged on the couch while the other new mothers glared. Three kids earns you some rights.

Two days later we brought home the third child and sat with our family. Kirk looked around at our three healthy, happy, bright, beautiful children and said the most wonderful thing he had ever said:

'Honey, I'm going to get a vasectomy.'