The Impeccable Timing of Children

My parents love, as many parents do (I think as their own form of revenge for various humiliations at the hands of their children), telling a story of me as a child. One winter while shopping, they made a stop at the jewelry counter in Bloomingdale's. At the time I was an infant, and my older sister Brynn old enough to speak but not old enough to understand discretion. Due to the leaky nature of cloth diapers, I am alleged to have had... rather unsavory things... running down my legs onto the white marble floors. My sister, eager to point out my act, loudly announced to all within earshot that I had pooped on the floor. My parents, having no other recourse, beat a hasty retreat.

Often there is a debate among parents which accidents are most horrifying and difficult to clean up. Personally, I find vomit most disgusting, but as of a few days ago, had had no first-hand experience with anything beyond heavy spit-up.

New Year's Eve, I have realized, is a holiday for single people and drinkers. Parents, especially those of young children, mostly have no part and are more than happy to go to bed, roll over in the middle of the night, and mumble a Happy New Years, if that much cognizance is present. Having no desire to stay up, but always willing to make a party of things, Brandon and I had a modest party with my cousin Mark and his wife Melodie, who have no children and are always great to invite over. 'Modest' being a deceiving word, and having evidently forgotten the preparations for recent dinner parties and Christmas dinner, Brandon and I spent all day (but only one day this time!) preparing various "small bites."

Dinner was much enjoyed, followed by Boggle and Yahtzee, all to the accompaniment of some nice jazz. Kathleen I am sure dreamed of being in a dicing parlour.

Following fond farewells around 10:30 (we were celebrating the New York New Year), Brandon and I checked on Kathleen, only to discover her face-down in the remains of borsch, having completely soaked all her blankets, her clothes, her sheet, her mattress pad, and her hair, which had by this time dried in spikes.

So indeed we did celebrate New Years in Mountain Standard Time, but I don't think there was much romantic kissing the New Year in, perhaps just a very tired peck.

Having no further symptoms the following day except a reluctance to eat, we scratched our head and did nothing, as Kathleen has shown no inclination to let fall anything from her lips that sounds like English words, and cannot describe any feelings of malaise to us.

Upon waking her from a nap on Wednesday with a loaded, liquid diaper followed five minutes later by evacuation from the other end, we realized that in fact, something was up. A difficulty of having non-communicative children is that, well, they don't communicate very well, including communicating when they don't feel well.

Which returns me to my original subject, that of the timing of children. Not only did Kathleen become sick(er) on Wednesday, but I also had my long-awaited ultrasound. Ultrasounds are supposed to be exciting, the time when you start calling your unborn baby by its name, when you start making plans for games of catch, or polite tea parties. And it was exciting and amazing to see our baby kicking around, moving its little fingers, yawning, and rolling everywhere. Right until Kathleen showed us again what she had eaten for breakfast.

And for anyone who is wondering, we're having another girl, Sophia. Hopefully she'll have better (or worse, depending on how you look at it) timing than her older sister.