shh, you're waking up all the babies
[2005-10-09 - 11:15 a.m.]

When I am at my second job, I think of my oldest girl.

After I get in there, and a couple of hours have gone by, I get a chance to take a deep breath and re-organize for the 2nd part of my shift. Then I take lunch. The lunch room has a tv with the good cable channels and refrigerated vending machines. Most of the time there isn't anyone around, b/c practically everyone smokes, so they eat outside in the tent.

When I'm sitting there eating my supper, I invariabely pull out my cell and try to call home to talk to Cara. If I'm working to send her to college, I want to touch base with her sometimes. She never seems happy to hear from me, though. But I'm not mad. She is the kind of kid that every parent should have at least one of. How many girls get honors when they've been moved to another highschool in their last year? How many girls can keep their heads on straight about boys? How many 17 year old girls are promoted to manager in a job after being there for only a few months??

Cara was born when my husband was away at boot camp. The delivering doc was a short man, and not stocky. When he held her near his chest so I could see her, she looked gargantuan. Like a 12 year old. We laugh about that, but I've never really told anyone what I was thinking when I finally got to look at her pretty little face for the first time.

"YYYYYYYEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!! YES YES YES YESSS!!! MY PRETTY LITTLE GIIRRRRRLLLL!!!!!! MINE MINE MINE MINE!!!! WHOOHOOOOO!!!!"

You know how some new babies scream like hysterical cats? She didn't. She was VERY quiet. I think she let out a couple of little yelps, and that was it. Then she latched on and nursed, all pink and soft and relaxed. Thats when I noticed that she was going to have curley blond hair. And that's when I also realized that I couldn't name her Pagen. Or Emily.

The next day, I was holding her, and she made a funny noise, and started to turn dark pink. I called for the nurse, who came in and looked at her. Right then Cara went from dark pink to violet. The nurse grabbed her, patted her back twice and then Cara gasped, and pinked up again. The nurse said she had a mucous plug in her lungs that dislodged and then stuck in her windpipe and she just needed a pat to get it unstuck.

I thought "maybe she should have gone ahead and cried a little more when she was born. No one would mind. Babies are supposed to cry." Two years later, she made up for it, when she screamed bloody murder down the hallways of that same hospital ward, when Daddy brought her to visit me and Tiffany. Her little sister was finally born, and she wasn't done holding her yet.