that's just what she did. they enjoyed the game. i stayed behind because of work that night. around 8pm, the audi pulled up out front and my family piled out. this was the first time i'd seen her showing, now at 20 weeks she had a nice little bump going. it was thrilling and amazing and crazy and mind-blowing. and that was just seeing her on the sidewalk. then they came INside, sat at the bar and the ultrasound pictures came out. the 2-D ones were really realy beautiful. there was one in perfect profile that i can't believe i didn't scan. (curses!) the 3-D ones, however, so. crazy. they made little plum baby look like gollum. gollum with no nose. somehow it sort of mixes x-ray and ultrasound and shows more bone structure in some places and eliminates flesh in other parts. those were a bit unnerving for obvious reasons, but the amount of detail and clarity was very impressive.
the next couple days we bummed around. it was wonderfully lazy giving us time to catch up and prepare for the photoshoot that i planned with my great-aunt's rolleiflex. i ruined one roll, but the other two came out. these are digital from the same shoot, taken by mom and pops:
at this point, plum baby was the size of a banana. one evening when ryan and pops were in the hot tub, anne called me over to where she was sitting on the couch. plum baby was moving around. i put my hand on her tummy, warm and full and waited. the expectation made me flip my shit when, after about 30 seconds, i was kicked in the palm by a plum baby. it was the craziest thing ever. very strong and firm and short, like a forceful finger tap. i think there was leaping and running in place because it was so weird.
one day mom and i took anne to see grandma. grandma is in a nursing home. she has good days and bad days, but she suffers from dementia. i think we suffer more than she does, but whatever. she has a hard time remembering names and relationships and who died forty years ago, etc. she referred to me as 'armadillo' once to mom. that's my favorite. when she saw anne she said 'oh, you've got the boobsies'. later, in the middle of our chat, she came out with: 'my, you ARE fat'. after a while, her conversation drifted over to mom, so i turned to anne and asked her: what happens to your abdominal muscles when your belly pops out? she turned to me with a slight smile, eyes twinkling in a way i'll never forget and in a half whisper, with a breath of mystery and magic that made me see for a second what a good mom she'll be, what wonderful stories she'll tell, she said: they split. with the word 'split' she drew her pointer fingers from the middle of her belly out. 'what?! they SPLIT?!' 'they SPLIT' she repeated. we decided that hers must've already split and that it was good that she wasn't sure as that means it wasn't painful at all.
on her last night in town, we took a trip to borders to purchase some baby name books. when we finally found the section (and not on our own, mind you. it's back by children's books, strangely enough.) there was a couple there doing what we were about to spend the next hour doing: reading names aloud and laughing uproariously. it was freakin hilarious, much aided by the fact that their last name is 'woodward'. the 'w' really helps out with the comical nature of some names. anne will have to remind me about some of the best ones...
next chapter: from the horse's mouth
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