There’s been a lot of ….feedback? from my last blog, wavering from some getting a hearty laugh to others wondering if my thinly caged rage might psychologically damage my unborn child. All of it interesting to me, I’m just thankful people find the blog interesting enough to read after 4 years. Regardless, I have to add a tiny gem to my first post….
The very next day after posting ‘Hate, grr’ Pete and I took Annie to have her MMR shot. While we sat patiently in the waiting room trying to keep her entertained with broken, probably germ infested toys and toys that had lost the parts integral to making them any fun at all, or were all used up like the colouring in book with all it’s pictures coloured; a woman came in and sat down next to me. The way she breezed in, looked conspiringly at the receptionist who clearly had no clue who she was and said loudly, ‘Gosh I’m here so much I might as well live here!’ followed by an equally loud ‘HAHAHA’ that she was all alone in, I could tell what type of person she was. You know? Bit lonely, personality slightly too irksome to have many or any close friends. Gets by talking WAAAYYY to personally to strangers, people on the bus, in supermarket lines…at doctors surgeries.
I used to be quite tough on this kind of character, life too busy, thought myself too important to bother with the chit chat or something, now that I”m a mum I’m a little staved of adult conversation some days so that chit chat doesn’t bother me so much anymore, sometimes I relish it a little, I still never start it though.
She begins by talking to Annie, no surprise, my daughter is a people magnet. We can’t go 2 steps in the mall without someone stopping to talk to her and she BEAMS at everyone, like a kid with down syndrome, just smile smile smiles. Even teenagers, goths and angry men are forced to grin back. Anyway, eventually the woman turns to me, ‘she’s adorable’. ‘Yeah’, I say, ‘she’s lovable alright’. I have got good at answering this question. Blah blah blah, back and forth we go. Pete pretends not to be listening from the chair across the room, Annie stands in front of the lady giving her best smile and occasionally pointing out a body part and telling her what it is called, ‘nooooshhhh’ she says, with her finger on the Harrow button. The woman turns the convo to my obvious pregnancy, asking when I”m due and interjecting with stories of her own kids etc etc…. Then she says,
‘do you know what you’re having?’
‘ Yeah a boy’, I say, ‘I was keen to have another girl just like Annie but her dads chuffed to bits so I’m happy’.
Then she says, ‘REALLY? I didn’t care what I had, so long as it was healthy’.
I smiled. ‘Yeah, sure, that really is the most important thing isn’t it’ I reply.
Pete can barely contain his mirth from across the room. I can feel his unbridled joy at watching me squirm against my current nemesis. Then she says,
‘I LOVED being pregnant. Of course I had terrible nausea with my first from start to finish’, I bite my tongue. ‘But I just loved it all, watching my tummy grow, feeling them move’
She goes all glazed eyed on me, remembering her moment of glory. I take the opportunity to look at Pete. He’s playing on his phone but the smile on his face is stretched from ear to ear. Bastard.
Inside I’m laughing too. What are the chances of having this very conversation the day after I rant about how very irritating I find these comments. To round off this day I get an email from Bella Mumma that night filled with the latest birth stories. I flick onto the first one, it reads…”We are often inspired and uplifted to hear how special your birth experiences have been…” I exit the website and remove my name from their mailing list.
3 weeks and counting folks. Come early little man and surprise me. And for gods sake, BE HEALTHY!!!
