A Day for Tears

I have been extremely blue and prone to tears for much of the day. I got a good nap in while Susie was here, but I am still exhausted. And that damnable pepto-pink is giving me fits! Today I picked up a forth gallon of primer. And I haven't been using the cheap stuff either. I've been using the expensive stuff guaranteed to cover anything. The stuff I'd used four years ago when we first moved in to cover the Thomas The Train blue in The Youngest's bedroom! Who paints their kid's room that awful bright blue? I guess people who paint their kid's room pepto-pink!

I went to the beloved Dr S's office to pick up the amnio report. When the office gal went to verify that Dr S said I could have it, he came out himself to greet me. "Tracy," he said, taking my hands, "How are you doing, my dear?" I assured him that I was doing well and that I'd already begun researching the best and most recent therapies for babies with Down syndrome. "Okay sweetheart. That is good. We will see you in just a few weeks. If you have any problems, anything at all, you call me." So I left his office and sat in the van reading the amnio report. I had a copy in my hand of Jack's karyotype. His genes. And there it was. Three copies of chromosome 21. And a laundry list, in print, of things that can be wrong with My Baby. I sat in the van and had a good long cry before I pulled myself together and drove away.

The Incredible Miss S called me this afternoon to say what a beautiful job I'd done on the pregnancy announcements. It gave my spirits an incredible lift. Not only to speak of The Baby in a positive and cheerful fashion, but just to hear her and catch up on all the things we seldom get to speak of in our passing greetings to each other on-line.

The call from The Incredible Miss S also made me realise that others had gotten their announcements too. Including Mom and Dad in Idaho. Whom I had here-to-fore been too cowardly to tell myself. Shameful. But there it is. But really, I'd wanted to tell them we were having another Baby at the same time we told them the gender. And by the time we knew it was a boy, so much had gotten so much more complicated. Yes, I had taken the cowardly way out, but I think it was purely out of self preservation.

In the evening, The Dear Daddy arrived home in a huge green truck with 15 yards of soil amendment for the backyard. The Girls, no the Other Girls, Sophie and Princess, had destroyed the sprinklers the previous summer and we'd both been too busy with life to get them repaired in a timely manner. Consequently, the grass had died and it was a barren wasteland. And the grass had never been that great anyway, so we were starting over from scratch. Hence the need for 15 yards of soil amendment. The Littles ran out to the front lawn the watch The Dear Daddy operate the gears to lift the back of the truck and dump the pile into the driveway. When he joined us on the lawn he kissed The Littles and ruffed their hair. Once inside the house we made some small talk but he had a hard time meeting my eyes. Instead, he went off to take a nap.

I used the time to finish the primer in the nursery closet and to paint the door. I tried to be alone with my thoughts, but this was the favorite new place for The Littles to hang out and they were keeping up a steady stream of questions and bickering with each other. Kids do that. Especially The Littles.

Dinner that night was a casual affair of pizza and television. The Dear Daddy was busy engaging The Littles about how they'd spent their day, so I wandered back into the nursery to check the coverage of the primer. And then I decided to take a few minutes to seal the window on the inside. Imagine my surprise when I turned to see The Beloved standing there. He asked why I wasn't using a caulking gun and I explained that I wasn't good with one, that it was easier for me to do it by hand. He started listing the supplies he'd need to seal the window from the outside and that he'd do the shopping for that so I wouldn't have to. Then the moment passed and he returned to the living room and I went to take a shower. It was a start, at least.
We went to bed after midnight having said very little to each other that wasn't small talk. I was reminded of the time two months after my stroke when I'd suddenly regained my full range of speech and vocabulary. He'd hugged me and said how much he'd missed sitting around in the evening just talking with me. Now I was missing it.