111 - Tickled Pink

Mommy and Me

April 10, 2012

Today was Mommy’s monthly check-up at the doctor, and I’m not very happy with the two of you. 

I’ve gained ten pounds already!  The doctor says I’m right where I should be at 17 weeks, but that I can expect to gain another 1 ½ pounds every week!  Do you realize how much weight that is?  Well, I haven’t gotten out the calculator to figure it out yet, but it’s a LOT.  She tells me she wants me to gain at least 30 pounds and I should TRY to put on weight in the next 7 weeks. That way you’ll be bigger, healthier babies even if you come earlier than we’re expecting.  

I understand that, but STILL!  Yes, my Poppies, your mother’s streak of vanity is wider than I realized, and I think it’s going to grow in proportion to my backside!

Your daddy thinks it’s hilarious that I’m freaking out over my weight, but that’s okay.  I’m going to make him eat what I eat and DARE him to go near the gym.  I think some sympathy weight gain is in order here.  Don’t you agree??

❧❧❧

Mommy and Me

April 16, 2012

Daddy has started finding reasons to eat out.  He comes home from meetings in the city, or from running errands, saying that so-and-so bought him lunch.  He’s onto my sympathy weight plan.  No one could ever accuse your father of being a dumb man. 

He adores having his hands on my belly now that he can feel you moving.  I think his hands are there more often than my hands and that’s fine, in theory.  But when he starts poking at you and telling you to move, it loses the cute factor and becomes annoying. 

I finally told him that if his hands are going to be there, he should be doing something useful besides badgering his children.  That’s why you’ve been getting the lovely, scented massages lately.  Daddy is rubbing Mommy’s special homemade lotion all over my belly so I don’t get stretch marks.  It might be a losing battle, but the massage is nice and the scent relaxes me – and THAT relaxes you.  It’s a win-win situation all the way around. 

Daddy’s not the only one around here who isn’t dumb, my sweet Poppies. 

❧❧❧

Mommy and Me

April 17, 2012

Your Uncle Richie just left.  Did I tell you he spent the weekend with us?  He and Daddy were working on songs for either the band album or Uncle Richie’s new album.  I’m not sure which, but his were the really long fingers poking at you a little while ago.  It took him the entire three days that he was here to convince me to let him feel you move.  Nothing personal against Uncle Richie, but bellies should be kept to oneself.

Mommy isn’t sure about this whole moving thing, Poppies.  People are starting to walk up to me and touch my belly, hoping to feel you move – sometimes even people I don’t know.   Your daddy is well within his rights to touch whenever he likes since you belong to him as much as you do me, but the lady in line at Shop Rite who rubbed my belly like I was Buddha?  Not so much.

It turns out that Mommy REALLY likes her personal space.

I’ve found out lots of new information in my latest bout of research.  I know you’re just dying to hear all about it, so I’ll tell you…

This heartburn I’ve been having supposedly means at least one of you has lots of hair.  That’s what they call an old wives’ tale, Poppies.  There is no scientific foundation for that assumption, just speculation.  The scientific explanation is that you’re trying to build a two-person pyramid down there and shoving Mommy’s stomach into her esophagus.  Could you refrain from these activities until you can walk on your own?  Please and thank you.  J

I’ve also discovered that the secret to an easy delivery seems to be walking.  Lots of walking.  Daddy might as well plan on buying an extra treadmill right now, because I fully intend to wear out the one we have.  The logistics of having a baby are not something a mother should discuss with her children, but let’s just say that Mother Nature is amazing.  I have no idea how this is going to work, but I’m going to help it along as much as I can.

Friday is our next ultrasound.  Have I told you how excited I am to see you again?  Dr. Orbuch said, this time, we might be able to tell whether you’re boys, girls or one of each.  Daddy still says boys, but Mommy thinks there are enough Bongiovi boys running around.  I’m holding out for a girl. 

Once we find out…  Then the great name debate begins in earnest.  Daddy’s had the best time making me crazy with names, by the way.  He keeps making suggestions that I think are ridiculous and threatening to sign the birth certificate while I’m asleep.  Examples?  Oh yes, you should have this documented for posterity’s sake.  Definitely.

Mick and Keith  (from The Rolling Stones)

Jagger and Richards (The Rolling Stones… again)

Paul and Ringo (Two of The Beatles)

Steven and Joe (Aerosmith)

Are you catching the theme here?  Yeah.  Your father thinks he’s cute and Uncle Richie doesn’t do anything but encourage him.  HIS suggestion?  Kermit and Fozzie.  (They’re Muppets, my little moppets.  A frog and a bear to be exact. )  

I can’t IMAGINE what your Uncle David would come up with.

Do you see why I need one of you to be a girl?  I love Daddy with all my heart, but Mommy needs backup here!

❧❧❧

Jon leaned forward in the institutional-style chair, his hands loosely clasped between his knees.  Grinning up at his wife, who was seated on an elevated table, he asked, “You ready to meet our boys?”

They were back in the same ultrasound room where they’d received a life-altering shock only seven weeks ago.  Since that time they’d both come to terms with the fact that, in a few short months, they would be parents to a set of twins.

Jon had struggled a bit longer with the fact that he was going to have a total of six children.  Six.  Thoughts of developing a fledgling family football team had eventually brought a fun, bright side to that number.  The whole way into the city, he had teased Sheridan mercilessly about adding to his personal Bongiovi football team.  After these two, so he only needed five more, he assured her.  She could do that in short order if she was popping them out two at a time, right?

His wife was not amused. 

“I told you,” she repeated with a slight huff, straightening the diamond pendant on her necklace.  “I have to have a girl.  Riley’s speaking to me again on the condition that one of these babies is named after her.”

In truth, her sister had finally realized what a dumbass she was being, but she took her sweet time figuring it out.  It was just yesterday that the woman had turned up on their doorstep with a basket of baby care supplies and a bunch of other stuff Jon didn’t recognize.  All she said when Sheridan answered the door was, “I had to make sure you were stocking the right kind of supplies for my namesake.  Let me see what you’ve done with the nursery.”

And that had been that.  No apologies were exchanged as far as he was aware, but Riley stayed for dinner that night and, from his perspective, it was like nothing had ever happened.   That’s just the way it was with siblings sometimes, he supposed.  Lord knew he’d experienced it often enough with his brothers through the years.

“Riley’s totally unisex,” he contended now.  “It’s a good, strong football player name.”

Humorless green eyes slid to him, her look saying what a thousand words couldn’t.  She no longer found his jibes entertaining.  “The horse is dead, Jon.  Stop beating the poor thing already.”

“Good morning!”  The entrance of the ultrasound tech saved him from sticking his foot in his mouth by making a lewd beating comment.  She set the chart aside and pulled on a pair of rubbery gloves, her light brown ponytail swinging around her shoulders as she introduced herself.  “My name is Emily and I’m going to show you your babies today.  Congratulations on twins, by the way.”

Did all ultrasound girls have to be obscenely perky, Jon wondered as he moved to stand by the exam table.  Was that a job requirement?

“Thank you,” his wife responded politely while he was blinded by the young woman's over-large smile.  “We’re excited to see the babies again… and maybe put an end to our argument about boys versus girls.”

Emily giggled in a way that made her seem slightly insane.  Sweet, but insane.  “You’d be surprised how many parents have that very argument in this room.  So, in the interest of peace and matrimonial harmony, I won’t waste any time.”

And, true to her word, not another bit of fluff perked out of her mouth.  The smile morphed into an expression of focused intent as she slathered Sheridan’s belly with iridescent goo and got down to business.   

His wife's first sharply indrawn breath was because of the gel's coolnesss against her warm skin.  That one quickly faded, to be immediately replaced by another.  The second was attributed to...

“Look, Jon!  There’s one of their heads.”  Her hand slid off the table, blindly reaching for his and gripping it tight. 

Grinning, he gripped right back, as riveted to the monitor as she was.  This shit never got old.  If he could have a Baby Cam hooked to her, he probably would.  Between that and CNN he might actually sit still for more than five minutes at a time.

The magic ultrasound wand moved slowly over each inch of stretched skin, slowly inspecting and measuring.  As she went along, Emily pointed out the arms, legs and heartbeat of the first baby  – which was a girl.

“It’s a girl!  I get a girl!”

Sheridan’s head swung toward him, sheer joy illuminating her pretty features.  How could he be unhappy about that – or his first baby girl in twenty years?

“Looks like Riley’s gonna keep speaking to you,” he mused with a chuckle, dropping a kiss on top of her head.  “Although I think Johnette would be a great name.  Or Johnna.”

The glee dimmed only a by a fraction when she wryly ordered, “Don’t you dare ruin this for me.  Give me my moment before you start with the stupid names, okay?”

“Yes, dear.” 

His amused compliance met the side of her head as they both turned back to the screen with rapt attention.  Emily had located the second baby and all its pertinent parts, pointing out the highlights as she measured its head, arms and legs. 

“The babies are fraternal, it looks like,” she told them.  “I’m almost positive that I see a second placenta in there, so you shouldn’t have any trouble telling your babies apart.”

“Ha!  I’m still getting a boy,” he crowed softly into his wife’s temple.

“Well…  I hate to disappoint you, Daddy, but….”  Emily frowned, swishing back and forth for a good shot.  “This baby is bigger than her sister, but she’s a girl, too.”

“Two girls?”  Sheridan couldn’t rip her watery eyes away from the screen.  She had started getting a bit emotional lately.  Just a little, tearing up at weird little things as pregnant women sometimes did, but he didn’t consider this weird.  Mommy hormones should be in full swing at these events, in his personal opinion.  “I’m going to have two daughters?”

“Not you.  Us,” he corrected gently, twining his fingers more tightly into hers.  “We’re having two daughters.”

“Yes, but they’re not coming out of your hoo-ha.”

Emily covered her laughter with a cough as she finished up, wiping down the wand and printing a second set of ‘pictures’ for the chart. 

“Okay, I’m not having them.  I’ll give ya that, but I’ll have them for the rest of our lives.”

Sheridan accepted the ultrasound photos, sitting up after her stomach had been wiped dry.  Her nose buried in them, she touched a single fingertip to the one that had been spliced to show both babies in the same picture. 

“They’re girls.  My Poppies are pink little girls.”

He ran an open hand over her back, looking at the shadowy shots with a deep smile creased into his face. 

Daughters.  Lord, God, Jesus.  TWO daughters. 

“They are.  Unless I turn them into tomboys,” he teased.  “Then I think that makes them lavender.”

“Stop it.”  She bumped her shoulder into his chest as Emily wished them a good day, telling them to take their time as she slid out of the room.  “These are going to be true girls.  Tea parties, hair bows, ballet lessons…  all the things that I did when I was a little girl.  I can just see their little chubby legs sticking out from under a tutu.”

He tipped her chin up so that she would look at him instead of the papery photos in her hand.  “And they’ll be just as beautiful as their mama.  I love you.”

“I love you, too, but are you heartbroken that I’m not giving you boys?” 

Heartbroken?  No.  If he were honest, there was the tiniest bit of disappointment and a whole lot of fear, but in the end it didn’t matter what gender his kids were.  They were his kids.  He would love them come hell or high water, no matter what.

“Nah.  I like Lucy and Ethel just fine for names.”

Jon just cackled with delight when she blew a raspberry in his face.  Naming these girls was going to be fun.