I was at Trader Joe's yesterday, standing in line to pay, not minding my own business whatsoever, behind a very adorable and large pregnant woman. I overheard her tell the cashier that she is due in 10 days. Sidenote: is it technically overhearing if you're really just staring at two people talk and pretending that you're in their conversation too? I guess we'll never know. Anyway, as she was leaving, she turned over her shoulder and said "As long as this baby doesn't come on Saturday I'll be happy!" It took me a second to figure out what she was talking about, and then I realized that tomorrow is February 29 and I completely understood what she was talking about. This year is a leap year. Which, by the way, always make me think of that Modern Family episode "Leap Days", when Cam is turning 40 but since his birthday falls on Leap Day he keeps insisting he's really 10. Then I started giggling to myself in public, which happens far too often. Basically any time I'm in public.
As I loaded my car and drove home I was thinking about due dates and how we (usually) have no control over them. Zoey was born on her due date in May, and she was a really tough baby. She was tiny, cute, smart, and difficult. She wouldn't sleep or eat for the first two months of her life, and by the time she did start sleeping and taking a bottle at 4 months, she decided that would be the time she'd start crawling everywhere. Can you imagine the stares I used to get when my 10 pound, bald, 4 month old baby girl decided to crawl all over the mommy and me group I used to attend? All the other happily content fat babies would be laying in front of their moms, staring up lovingly at them, while mine was across the room planning her escape.
I bet all of our family and friends thought we'd be a "one and done" family after her rough few months of life, when neither of us had slept and were basically zombies for a full summer. I bet the last thing any of them expected was that when Zoey was 6 months old and we were finally starting to sleep through the night and feed her real foods, that I would get pregnant again. But that's exactly what happened. Oopsie daisy.
So, 9 months later, while Zoey was a walking, running, talking, crazy 15 month old, I was getting ready to welcome our son into the world. Josh's due date was September 17 and I was trying to avoid September 11 as his birth date. On the night of September 10 when I started having some serious pain, I ignored it. We put Zoey to bed, watched some TV, and I pretended like I wasn't pregnant at all, even though my knees were buckling from the pain as I crawled into bed that night. And at 2 o'clock in the morning of September 11 when my water broke, I first pretended maybe I spilled a glass of water and tried to go back to bed. I really, really, really didn't want my son's birthday to be associated with one of the hardest and saddest days of our country's history. But, he was born around noon on September 11 and every year on his birthday I tell anyone who will listen that he brings joy and love and happiness to a day that really needed it. It doesn't matter what day a person is born. What really matters is that if you have a baby who has colic or won't eat, or won't sleep, just know that it's a phase and you'll get through it, and if you have another one he might just be the laziest, happiest, sleepiest, hungriest boy of all time to make up for it.
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