How did y’all spend Mother’s Day this year? Were you able to contact the mothers in your life? I hope so. I hope you at least got to text or call, even if you couldn’t be in the same place. Now that my state has moved to a partial reopening, and I am days away from being the first-in-line babysitter, we have expanded out world just far enough to go over to our daughter’s house. While the rest of the people around here are rushing back to get haircuts and restaurant meals, what I’m doing will net a narrowing of my interactions, overall. I’m not going to the grocery store or post office or anything like that for the next two to three weeks. I have four doctor appointments scheduled for the next few weeks, and some of them will probably be in person (one for sure won’t). But beyond that, I’m sticking close to home. Let everyone else test the waters for a resurgent virus. Me, I will stay clean and thus get to hold my first grandchild. It is all I’m focused on. And it’s coming soon. Ten days or less now.
We went over for brunch late this morning. While my daughter and I made veggie omelettes, my husband got set up playing the Untitled Goose Game. If you aren’t familiar, your objective is to be an obnoxious goose who steals items from villagers, performing specific tasks like “make the man fall down.” The graphics are very basic, and the AI is fairly simple, all things considered. The whole thing is incredibly quaint, with an English hamlet feel to it, with sweet piano music playing throughout that sounds like the Mr Rogers music. Yet, once we finished eating, and I sat and watched the game, it was surprisingly stressful. We all had little else to do other than watch him play the game, and chat about nonsense things. (Because my other choice was to keep looking at my daughter’s giant belly, asking, “Now? Now do you feel a contraction?” And then after about two minutes, “How about now?”)
When my other daughter called me to wish me a happy Mother’s Day, we talked about her sister a little. My scientist child taught me something interesting that I hadn’t previously known: she told me the most current understanding of what factor affects when labor begins. She said a group of women archaeologists rejected the notion that labor begins just before the baby’s head is too big to fit through the pelvic opening. They said that much more relevant was the ability of the mother to support the growing fetus calorically. Once the baby’s caloric needs are higher than the mother can provide through the placenta, hormones are triggered to start labor. I think I have that right. I asked her whether I shouldn’t have shared that big brunch of eggs and toast and bacon with her sister, if I’m so hot to meet that baby, and she laughed and said no, that was probably a good call to feed her like that. Let the kid develop a few more key cells before they make their debut in the world. Fine, I said. I’ll just keep waiting.
I mentioned the roses that appeared here yesterday. I’m not happy that the Mr was near the giant crowd that went to the Flower Bin yesterday, but I am more than willing to accept new roses into the Park. He learned from speaking with the experts at the nursery that the big strong cold snap we had last October was responsible for all the damage I had noticed on roses especially, and other cane plants to a lesser extent. Nearly every rose I have died off from a few inches above the roots and up. It took a long time to see any regrowth this year, and it’s all from the base of the plants. The experts said just cut off the dead wood and be glad the roots are still alive. Luckily, the potted roses we got are in much better shape. He brought a vivid orange rose (my favorite color for them), and it’s already in the ground by our tool shed. For the front he brought a big bushy white rose, and a dainty dark purple shrub. They will be planted this week, I hope, along with the new geraniums. We are going to experiment with putting geraniums in the ground, to see whether they come back next year, like he swears he saw happening when he was on a walk.
The other rose he bought was for the name more than anything else. He got one called Rio Samba, and gave it to the kids. It will go near the grave of my daughter’s favorite cat Rio, her little old man who died two summers ago. Rio was her first “baby,” the kitten who decided he liked her best of the whole family. They still speak of him in reverential tones.
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