Baby Blanket on the Bed

This past week I've been sleeping on the couch. I've been sick, and there is-- in my mind--no possible way to keep on friendly terms with your spouse if one of you is sick, and you are both in the same bed. There is just no way. Deliberately setting up your spouse to get sick too is not a loving form of sharing-- it's sabotage. So this past week, while I've been horrendously germy, I've granted him a strong chance of health. Of NOT going where I've been. Which is why, *after* I woke up this morning, I walked into my room ;)

I was exhausted beyond belief after several nights of only getting a few hours of interrupted sleep each night. I was a bleary eyed and tired woman looking for a sweater to throw on so I could take my youngest to kindergarten. I noticed a pile of clean clothes on my side of the bed (THANK YOU MATT!!) and looked for what I needed. While searching, my eyes registered something: a baby blanket on the bed.

It was the Noah's Ark one that I *NEEDED* when I found out that I was having a boy. It was THE ITEM that would help me cross that ocean of tiny-male-bundle-full-of-explosive-testosterone that I found myself having to journey across. I remember -- before I even knew I was pregnant-- of suddenly having this ferociousness in me-- this uncontainable "I'm Gonna Conquer The World and You Better Be OK With It" attitude. I felt my world had been reduced to ME and ..... well, ME.

It was strange. It was different. It was a PAIN IN THE BUTT. Suddenly I didn't like having my will crossed AT ALL. I was opinionated, rude, blunt (ie, another way of saying rude), and cranky. I'm still surprised, when I look back at that time period, that NO ONE hired a hit man to take me out. They must have felt really compassionate towards that unborn baby.....you know, the very one that had turned me into a Mean and Evil Woman.

There was a battle of wills when I was pregnant with our first boy. There was a war for dominance, for control, for sanity. The worst part is, that because it was so internally focused, that the shock waves had no where to go but out. Which is why one should always give a pregnant woman what she wants-- you never know if she is having one of THOSE kind of pregnancies. Like a specific Noah's Ark baby quilt set.

This one was blue. It had golden stars on the back of the quilt and on the baby bumper. It had cute, sanitary looking animals on the front. The boat was even artistically adorable. In short, for me, it was a reminder of how a man, (which boys do grow up to be), could do so much good for so many. Noah wasn't some mellow-go-with-the-flow kind of guy. He had a dominate force of personality. He had to-- to do what he knew was right, despite the mocking crowds, takes a will that is stronger than all those who opposed him-- all of them *combined* mind you. He wasn't just a rock, he was a mountain.

The potential that was within me, (that Strong-willed MALE creature), had a good chance of making the world dance to his tune, if the pregnancy was anything to go by. (And they better like it too!) I just had to have faith, and hope, that the melody was going to result in something beautiful.

And it has. Despite the manipulations that got him an electric guitar last Christmas, and despite the fact that I will never fully understand the need in this world for all of his zombie jokes, he is awesome.


He is the one who put the pile of my clean clothes on my bed for me.