I Am Fruitcake

Here I am, eating yogurt and browsing the web at 7:00 in the morning when I should by rights be still asleep.  (I know, 7 is a perfectly reasonable time to be UP, and I would love to be, except that I wake up at 4, and I can't be up by 7 if I can't sleep until then!  7 has been when I've been going BACK TO SLEEP in order to get enough to [sort of] get through the day.  GRRR!) 

("Sleep now!" people glibbly tell me, "Because you won't be getting any sleep after the baby's born!  Hee, hee!"  Rubbish.  I'll probably sleep better after this kid is not inhabiting my body any more.  Of course, I said that with Evan, and then entered a year of Baby Sleep Hell like nothing I've ever known.  Whatever.  Sleep is just not my thing.)

My brain just won't shut up early in the morning lately.  And it's been going on and on and on, every day the same.  I wake up, aching and sore, after sleeping half-hour increments all night, and I still have not had a baby, and my brain clicks on and won't listen to my body, whining about how tired it is.  It's like Groundhog Day, every day, world without end.

Any woman in my situation would have calculated her due date to be September 29. And any woman would be a BASKETCASE by the time she was 20 DAYS PAST THAT DATE.  Just because I was paying attention (a little, not enough apparently) to know and expect that my real due date is a LITTLE LATER (though how much is anyone's guess) DOESN'T MEAN I DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE A BASKETCASE. 

And let me tell you, I AM DOWNRIGHT CERTIFIABLE.

And lest you get worried about the possible dangers of going so far overdue, I'm not really that far overdue (it just feels like it!).  Like I said, I expected some "lateness". I was not planning on the 29th being my actual due date.  I might only be 10 days over.  Or a week, or two weeks, or who knows, really.  But everything is fine, I'm fine (HA!), baby seems to be doing great.  So great, in fact, that he/she is just too stinkin' comfortable in there, and prefers it, apparently, to coming out to meet the rest of the world.

"No, no, it's okay, we're fine, we're all fine here... uh... how are you?"  [Laser blaster to communicator]  "Stupid conversation anyway."

Star Wars.  Star Wars is ALWAYS appropriate.

So is the Princess Bride, which we watched last night with pizza and beer in attempt to distract ourselves.  And all I can say is-- this overdue-business is INCONCEIVABLE.

My Mom has been here for almost 3 weeks.  3 WEEKS.  She's changing her plane ticket date for the second time, and is now at the outer limit of the time she can spend here, because, um, she has a life, too.  And my Dad has been surviving without her at home all this time-- holding down the fort, as we say, and I have no doubt it's wearing on him by now.

My sister is here, now, too.  She was supposed to be The Reinforcements, arriving to help out around here when it was time for Mom to go home.

Can you see that THINGS ARE NOT WORKING OUT LIKE WE PLANNED?

Today is my Mom's 50th birthday.  Yes, that's right.  It's really special!  And she's spending it here, in rainy podunk Michigan, STILL WAITING FOR A BABY.  Do you know, she could have gone to Italy to celebrate her 50th birthday?  But she chose to be here, with me.

I am determined that we will not sit around and mope today like we did yesterday.  We have to do something special, because it's a special day.  The only thing Mom actually wants for her birthday (can you guess what that might be?) is, um, not working out so far.

So.  I've already had my good cry of the day, now it's time to find something fun to occupy the rest of it.  What can we do, my enormous self and two of my favorite women in the whole world?  (Aside from producing a grandbaby birthday present...)