Yes, it’s true.
A new baby will arrive in Friendswood, Texas on or about January 20th of next year. There goes my room. I guess I WILL be living in their sweltering, spider and scorpion-infested tool shed after all.
Michael and Najla were in a bit of denial about the pregnancy. They didn’t tell me until October. Sheeeeesh. They didn’t think I would notice at Christmas? Anyway, I thought that the best thing to do to ease my anxiety would be to buy and devour some Klondike Bars (six to a box). They lasted twenty-four hours. Four kids?
I was in Texas when their third child, Logan, was born, big and gorgeous, in April, 2017. With three children, Michael then swore he would get a vasectomy. Clearly that did not happen. At one point, I had even joked with Michael about scheduling his procedure myself……but decided that was entering “Buttinskyville.”
When Najla came home from the hospital with Logan the chunkster, the house was clean; sparkling floors, clean sheets and shampooed dogs. I had hoped the now family of five would carve out some quiet time to bond and I could sneak out with a fella I had recently met in the local western boot department.
But … they were home less than ten minutes before Michael and Najla invited two families over for dinner. THEY CAME FOR DINNER! I was incredulous as I watched them begin to rustle up a quick dinner for everyone.
While Michael was making hamburger patties, Najla, with daughter Chloe on her hip, was frying, chopping, peeling, and stirring to get things ready. My pulse rate went up just thinking about it.
In the most demure way, I asked my son if he really felt it was appropriate to have company. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that Logan careened out of my daughter-in-law’s now non-pregnant body.
Michael looked at me and said (something like): ”Well now momma, that’s how we do things here in Texas.”
I gave up. “Okey dokey, son. Then toss me the crayfish and I will boil the water.
•••
A few days later, I woke up with the intention of getting Najla coffee or taking care of Chloe, who was about seventeen months old. And there Najla was, smooshed into the corner of the couch. She was nursing a poopy baby while the squalling toddler, Chloe, was trying to climb up the back of the couch with a toy in her mouth. Einstein, the 90 pound dog, was splayed out on top of Najla’s feet attempting to change her foot size.
I sprang into action, offering to get her some coffee.
“I’m ok,” she said. “I’ll get some in a minute.”
Seriously? I thought. You are incapacitated in every possible way. I, on the other hand, am a flowering lily in my XXL-flannel lumberjack pajamas, ready and waiting to seize the day. I came to help, remember? Although, I believe it was last Christmas that I dumped out the breast milk she had just spent an hour pumping. I had been sashaying throughout the house collecting half-full bottles of milk and dumping them in the sink. Her liquid gold just happened to be in one of them.
I think she was a little irked.
I don’t know whether or how more kids will change things for me when I move to Friendswood. Obviously, there will be more kiddos to schlepp around, hang out with when sick, and love up in person every single day instead of from nineteen hundred miles away. And for that I am grateful.
Anyway, that’s it from me.
•••
Don’t leave me now because it seems I may be leaving for Texas sooner than I had planned, and I AM IN ONE BIG DITHER.