Precious, Joyful Day. When I Wasn't Hitting My Head With A Brick.

I had anxiety-shot dreams all night long, mostly along the lines of being at Lily's house and having to get ready for her ultrasound appointment. I hadn't brought the right clothes. Where was my bra? What would I wear? We would be late and it would be my fault, etc., etc., etc.
To add to the fun, the electricity went out in the middle of the night and so what time was it really? What about the alarm?

Ya-ya-ya-ya-ya.

But of course you know I got up on time and got to town and picked up Lily and Jason and we drove to the doctor's office where the ultrasound was to be done and there we were in the dark room, Jason up by Lily's shoulder and me next to him and the tech named Marie and there he was, that little dickens, that possessor of a heart with four chambers, kidneys, a bladder, a spine, eyes, mouth, nose, hands, feet and yes, a penis.

My grandchild has a penis which generally means we're getting a boy child.
A boy child.
Lily is having a boy.

We all cried. Well. Not the tech named Marie or the doctor. But Marie handed me a box of Kleenex and I doubt seriously I was the first grandmother to cry in that room and probably not the last one today, either.

There are pictures but I don't have my hands on any and you know what? They don't mean squat to me. I do like how one of the ones they printed out has a little arrow pointing to the pee-pee. That's one for the baby book!

We met Granddaddy Moon down at the bank and showed him the pictures and he was mighty happy. We all cried again or hell, I did, anyway. And let me ask you this- why is that Mr. Moon is looking too damn gorgeous and fit and muscle-y these days, way too handsome and young to be a granddaddy (he was wearing his Levi's today and well, DAMN! they look so good on him!) and me? Oh yeah, I look like a grandmother.

And how vain of me is it to be discussing something as ridiculously unimportant as the way I look versus the way my husband looks in the SAME paragraph as I discussed crying about how happy I was to have seen my grandchild's four ventricles working, opening, closing, the blood flowing through them, the very most intricate architecture of his spine and his ribs, his hands, his feet, his head, oval and beautiful like an egg, just laid- the very structure and evidence of life? The life of my own, my very own grandchild, one quarter me, one quarter Mr. Moon, one-entire-half of my daughter, my very own miracle, Lily?

Well, because I am vain and because directly after I took Lily and Jason home and hugged and kissed them and cried a little bit more and told them a million thank-yous for allowing me the honor of being with them in that dark room with Marie and her magic, I went and tried on bathing suits with Jessie.

So that explains THAT and there you have it.

I was telling Kathleen about trying on bathing suits and she said, "Well why didn't you just go and hit your head with a brick?" and she was right. If Jessie hadn't been continuously cracking me up with her shimmy shakes to see how her bosoms worked in each and every suit she tried on, I might have just gone and done that- hit my head with a brick- because it would have been just as effective at making me miserable.

Here it is- no matter what I eat, what exercise I do, and how much I care, I just have to face that fact that I am a little old round woman and that, my friends, is that.
Ah well.
And then Jessie got a call on her phone from a nurse telling her that the MRI she got last week showed multiple tears and cysts in her knee and that yes, she definitely needs to go see an orthopedic guy. "I don't know how you've stood the pain," the nurse said.

Her father and I have been telling her for years that of course her knees hurt- she's a growing girl of almost six feet in height although really, I couldn't figure it out. She's not at all overweight and it's not like she's played basketball since fourth grade, the way her daddy did. And yes, he had both knees repaired by her age so IT'S NOT MY FAULT, do you hear?
THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH MY KNEES! as one of my characters in a play I was in recently said.

And that's a day in the life.

The most ecstatic, ethereal and magic moment of my life as a grandmother (so far) and then the deep bitter grief over my old-lady round body (really- I was walking around Dilliards thinking, I miss the Beatles. I miss the Rolling Stones. I miss MY BODY!) like some fruitcake and then hearing that I've let my baby go on in pain for a very long time due to my negligence in not really taking her complaints seriously. I should have known- she's not a complainer.

Ah well.

And now I'm home and I've mucked out the chicken coops and picked some cucumbers and some bell peppers and Kathleen brought me some extremely lovely and delicious looking nutloaf and I am going to chop up mint and cucumbers in Greek yogurt and eat some of that for my supper. Mr. Moon is out of town and I am alone with all these various joys and bitternessess and self-recrimination and so, you see, life is normal, life is ordinary, life is a miracle, life is good.

We are trying to think of names for our little boy and I like the name Henry. Lily and Jason? Not so much.

"You could ask your blog people," Lily said. And so I shall. What should Lily and Jason name my grandson? Their last name begins with an "H" so there is that, if you, like me, are a fan of alliteration.

I wish I had a picture from the ultrasound. I will get one. Probably the one with his sweet little pee-pee. Sticking straight up.

Of course.

And so it begins.

Joy.